


Don't Be Blue (Don't You Know Someone Is Caring for You?)

by orphan_account



Series: Don't Be Blue (We Are Here for You) [1]
Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Child Neglect, Codependency, Daddy Kink, Double Penetration, Dubious Consent, Dubious Morality, Emotional Manipulation, Families of Choice, Gen, Human/Vampire Relationship, Mommy Kink, Multi, Naked Female Clothed Female, Naked Female Clothed Male, Non-Consensual Somnophilia, Not Safe Sane and Consensual, Oral Fixation, Oral Sex, Polyamory, Porn With Plot, Power Dynamics, Praise Kink, Rough Sex, Size Kink, Threesome - F/F/M, Touch-Starved, Trust Issues, Vaginal Sex, Vampire Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-06-27 01:06:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19780093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: For as long as Bella can remember she's been struggling to take care of her mother - making sure they have a roof over their heads, food in the fridge and taking care of the bills. Renée's marriage to Phil leaves her without purpose and she makes the choice to move to live with her father.But not everything is as it seems in the small sleepy town of Forks and Bella finds her path crossed with a reclusive family with curious eyes and far too much interest in someone like her.-Or: Bella has spent her life taking care of another and Esme and Carlisle is determined to show her it doesn't have to be that way.





	1. Forks

“I’ll be fine, Mom,” Bella tells her, dressed in too thin clothes for Forks weather and clutching a small cactus to her chest that won’t make it past the airport control.

From the moment Bella is old enough to reach the stove top on her tippy toes she’d been taking care of her scatter-brained mother, making sure the bills got paid, that there was enough for food in the fridge and shaking her mother awake in the morning with breakfast prepared and waiting.

Renée’s sudden marriage to Phil had left Bella without a place in her life, becoming an obstacle for her mother’s happiness instead of the being the sole reason they had a place to live at all, and she finds herself wrong-footed and at loss in the reality of it.

“Are you sure?” Renée presses. “You know you’ll always have a home with me.”

But Bella can see the sacrifice behind the promise in her eyes and there’s a responding coldness in her chest as she smiles and lies:

“I’m sure.”

-

Her father is a stranger – awkward and distant but trying in a way that Bella is unfamiliar with.

It’s the reality of having a red truck parked beside his cruiser, already paid for, and a new computer on the small desk in her childhood bedroom for all that little else had been changed since the last time she visited.

He tries to stop at a diner but she suggests ordering home some pizza and watch some football and for all that he looks surprised it’s soon traded for something pleased.

Bella listens idly to the commentators, seated criss-cross with the box in her lap and relieved to have dodged the potential awkward talk as her father gets himself sucked into the game, keeping half an ear on the rain smattering against the window outside and the rise of excited cheers from the television.

-

Bella finds her rhythm in Forks the same way she finds her rhythm in her old school: she doesn’t.

New people doesn’t make her feel anymore connected and her smile feels strained on her face before lunch, ducking and grabbing for her book and earbuds whenever someone tried to open conversation with her and bluntly refusing when the teachers try to lure her up to do introductions.

“I’m fine here,” she tells the English teacher and lets the refusal stretch until it becomes awkward, refusing to budge an inch to a cough and the lesson slowly picking up.

Being the new commodity will die down and she will fade into the background.

It’s just a matter of time.

-

“You should pick up a hobby,” Charlie suggests one Saturday morning when Bella is spending yet another weekend at home despite his best attempt to pressure her into having a social life. “You kids still have hobbies, don’t they?”

 _Kids_.

Bella is seventeen, almost eighteen, and she doesn’t know how to function without someone to look after because her entire life has been a single circular goal in making sure she and her mother had food and a roof over their head by any means necessary.

She’d been moonlighting since she was fourteen – juggling various jobs at odd hours for minimal pay to make things due.

She hadn’t had time for _hobbies_.

“I guess,” Bella says, shoving some cereal into her mouth.

“Look.” Charlie folds the paper together and puts it down onto the table. “I never thought I’d be saying this to my teenage daughter but you need to get out.”

Bella stares at him, chewing.

“I can do the shopping?” she offers finally.

Charlie’s face makes a mildly complicated thing before he shoves his hand into his pocket and pulls out his wallet, counting out a number of bills and slamming them down, shoving them across to her without removing his hand.

“You do the shopping,” Charlie says slowly. “And you bake something for us to eat after dinner.”

“Bake?” she repeats. “I’m not… really one for _baking_.”

“Then learn,” Charlie presses. “Do some – cupcakes or brownies, I don’t care what you settle on. But you’ll pick out the ingredients and you’ll make it from scratch.”

Bella looks between the pile of bills and her father’s hopeful eyes and gives a short sigh as she reaches out for them, trying not to feel guilty about the relieved smile on his face as she folds them up and shoves them down the pocket of her jeans.

-

Bella stares blankly at the numerous products in bright packages – trying not to feel too intimidated by the sheer number of different flour that existed, her eyes darting from one package to the next, the recipe she’d printed out at home crumpled in her fist.

It hadn’t specified which flour and while she might have just picked out anything the relief in her father’s eyes at such a simple task makes her want to do it well.

“Excuse me.” The voice is gentle, low and soothing for all that it startles her, shoulders going up as Bella turns her head to seek it out and she blinks at the impossible pale woman, her eyes a curious shade of amber with deep purple bags beneath them that did little to distract from her eerie beauty. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you, dear-“ she says as Bella stares at her. “But I couldn’t help but notice you’ve been starting rather intensely at the flour section for several minutes now.”

She’s got shopping basket at the crook of her arm and if Bella was to choose a word to describe her it would be _kind_. She is also, quite possibly, one of the most beautiful people Bella has seen in her life.

“It’s fine,” she adds a bit belatedly, realising that she’d been staring for longer than was strictly polite. “I’m-“ But Bella remembers her father and makes a decision between one breath and the other, slowly releasing the crinkled paper and making an attempt to flatten it out. “Actually – I’m trying to make this but I’ve never baked before and I’m a bit lost,” she admits.

The woman holds out her hand in a silent offer of help and Bella slowly hands it over, waiting quietly as the stranger scans over the list.

“Ah,” she says quietly. “You’ll want this then,” she says and Bella watches as she reaches for one of the white flours on the lower shelves and offer it up with a quirk of her lip. “And you’ll want granulated sugar for the batter,” she adds. “Are you planning on doing frosting as well? Maybe with a bit of colour?”

Bella’s mouth turns down a bit doubtfully for the batter felt daunting enough.

“It’s easy,” the woman coaxes. “And if they turn out a bit burnt or wobbly you can cover it right up,” she adds with a wink.

“I- wouldn’t want to inconvenience you,” Bella says a bit haltingly even if the idea was tempting.

“And you wouldn’t be,” the woman says with a firmness that made it impossible to question the surety of it. “Why don’t I help you pick out the ingredients and I’ll walk you through the recipe afterwards?” she suggests.

Bella hadn’t made it as far as she had by denying help when offered and she sticks out her hand to a blink of surprised amber. “Bella Swan,” she offers with a tick of her mouth.

The other smiles and then a surprisingly cold hand grasps hers with gentle firmness. “Esme Cullen.”

-

“I thought you weren’t one for baking,” Charlie says that night, on his fifth cupcake with frosting clinging to the strands of his moustache. “But this is really good.”

Bella stares down at her own, aware of the slight burnt surface of the otherwise golden muffin hidden beneath the off-colour green frosting which made it look rather like oddly fluffy slime.

Esme hadn’t been wrong about it and compared to the rest of the recipe the frosting had been easy, swirled on top as a finishing touch after removing them from the fridge after dinner.

She can’t say she enjoyed it, exactly – it was far too much work for such a small thing– but it made Charlie happy, the air around him content, and there is satisfaction in that for all that it felt unfamiliar and strange where it settles in her chest.

“You should do this again,” Charlie hums and Bella grasps for that sense of purpose, slotting it into the empty space after her mother as she buries deeper into the couch and takes a large bite of her own.

-

Bella breaks her arm two months into the semester and she has no-one to blame but herself, wincing and cradling the limb to her chest as she pushes up with the other, slumping back against her truck beside the totalled car that had narrowly avoided squishing her.

There’s shouts – the driver’s name ringing out – and Bella doubts anyone had seen her dive out of the way and she can’t even feel upset about it as she huffs out a breath, head hitting the metal with a dull thunk.

Only to blink as a small pale hand appears abruptly in her vision, an artful mess of dark spikes and that peculiar shade of amber that Bella had run into only two weeks ago.

“You need a hand?” the girl asks with a little quirk of her lips.

“It’s still attached so that’d be a no,” Bella offers a bit drily and the girl laughs – a light airy sound that suits her well.

“Come on you silly girl.” The hand wiggles its fingers invitingly and Bella sighs but reaches out, blinking as she was hauled to her feet with surprising strength. “This way,” the other urges and Bella obligingly goes low beneath the back of her car’s bed, inching out and away from the people gathered around the hurt driver.

“You looked like you didn’t want to deal with that whole circus,” the girl says with a knowing grin as Bella breathes out. “But you do need a doctor to look at that arm of yours.”

“I do,” she agrees because she’d broken enough bones to be sure her wrist needed a good cast.

Bella glances towards her car, knowing there was little to be done about it but not quite willing to have her father rush over to take her to the hospital for something small like this.

“ _Well_ ,” the other says, drawing the word out, and Bella slants her gaze back. “It just so happens that my dad is a doctor here in Forks and I have a fully functional car.” She bounces a bit, excited for reasons entirely beyond Bella. “Why don’t I take you?”

“You- are you sure?” Bella asks, caught off-guard.

The other bobs her head, smile growing. “Yes!” she says, warm and bright.

“I don’t even know your na-“

A hand is proffered before she’d finished speaking. “Alice Cullen,” the other girl says and Bella slowly grasps a hand nearly as cold as her mother’s.

“Bella Swan,” she says with a sense of déjà vu, and Alice’s smile only grows.

-

“I met your Mom,” Bella hears herself saying, awkwardly seated in the far too fancy red car with the lingering daggers of Alice’s blond haired sister prickling at the back of her neck. “She’s – really nice.”

“She is,” Alice agrees with a warm hum, the world whooshing past them, air tugging at their hair, a single hand resting on the wheel with comfortable ease. “None of us is really interested in baking, or cooking, for that matter, so you made her really happy when she got to give you a bit of a crash course.”

Bella hums a bit doubtfully.

“You did,” Alice says, oddly persistent as she turns her head to look at her. “Knowing Esme she was dying to know how it turned out.”

“It was just cupcakes,” Bella says, a bit uncomfortable but then she thinks of her father’s smile and she sighs. “They turned out fine- you can tell her that,” she says awkwardly, rubbing absently at the back of her neck.

Alice’s fingers drums against the wheel. “No. I think you’ll find the time to tell her yourself,” she says confidently.

Before Bella can open her mouth and question that dubious surety they come to a halt and Alice is fast, seatbelt unmade and half-way around the car before Bella has much time to realize that they’d made it before the ambulance.

“Jasper called Dad,” Alice assures her as she tugs Bella out of the car and gives the door a nudge shut before pulling her along towards the entrance instead of letting go. “He’ll meet us on the way,” she says confidently as Bella lets her injured arm fall loose at her side to avoid drawing attention to it.

When she was younger she’d learnt to cast her broken bones herself, claiming it’d been done at school to draw any unnecessary attention to it.

Her mother’s cash had been sparse and they didn’t have insurance and by the time Bella had managed to save enough from her odd jobs to get them one she’d been fifteen.

She'd hated seeing her mother fret and the reminder of having to call her father makrs the phone in her pocket feel cold. But she doesn’t have the supplies here like she’d had back in Phoenix and her car is still stuck in the parking lot so there was really little she can do about it.

And Charlie did have insurance – Bella had checked.

“Carlisle!” Alice exclaims brightly and Bella turns her head instinctively to catch sight of Esme Cullen’s husband, nearly tripping as that peculiar shade of amber registered to her in a third pair of eyes.

Blond haired with angular features, the purple shadows nearly more prominent than on his wife and daughter and, just like them, paler than even Bella who had been called a ghost on more than one occasion.

But where her veins stood out under her skin there was a low glow to theirs that made for a very attractive combination.

“Alice,” the man greets warmly and something inside of Bella wants to relax at the smooth roll of his voice, swallowing as Alice tugs her up beside her.

“There was an accident at school,” Alice says as Carlisle’s eyes turn to Bella who tucks her arm further into her jacket at the intensity of his eyes.

“I heard,” Carlisle murmurs, eyes lingering for a moment before he turns to beckon them along and Bella feverishly prays he’ll take them to his office. “Can I ask why you didn’t wait for the ambulance to arrive?”

“It’s just a broken arm,” Bella says a bit mulishly and Alice’s mouth twitches up as Carlisle raises a brow.

“I see,” he murmurs and something about his tone makes Bella very much doubt that he does.

“Bella-“ she realises, belatedly, that she hadn’t bothered to tell Alice her full-name and the nickname falls smoothly out of her mouth. “Why don’t you borrow me your phone and I’ll call your father for you while Carlisle looks over your arm?”

“Oh.” Bella reaches for it, brow creasing. “Are you sure? You’ve already done more than enough-“

But the phone is practically snatched out of her hand and she blinks a bit bemusedly at the pixie-like girl. “It’s fine,” Alice says, making a shooing motion. “Now hurry up and get that wrapped up!”

She does a little wave, skipping down the corridor as Bella stares after her.

“Oh, erm – Bella Swan,” she introduces herself as she barely catches herself from tripping into the open office door, a firm hand landing on her shoulder to steady her. “Sorry about bargaining in on you like this,” she gets out when he releases her and she turns to give him an awkward smile.

“It is quite fine,” Carlisle says warmly, closing the door shut behind him. “I am quite aware that my daughter is a bit of a force of nature once she puts her mind to it.”

He leads her to the examining table and she gets herself up with a bit of a fumble with only one hand to press down with, her left still half-tucked into her jacket where it pounds dully, already swollen and aching.

Carlisle rolls close on his chair as Bella pulls down the hem of her jacket, wincing at the sight of her red fingers.

“Do you mind removing your jacket?”

“I might need some help,” Bella admits and Carlisle rises to mindfully and professionally guide her out of it, unbuttoning the jacket near her wrist to get it off her swollen hand and he even steps away to hang it up before retaking his seat in front of her.

“May I?” he asks and she nods, twitching at the brush of his cold fingers as he rolls up her sleeve of her hoodie with a sympathetic twist of his lips as his fingers gently glides down her wrist.

He squeezes down on her hand and arm while asking questions and Bella enjoys the chill of his hands against the warm and swollen skin where he cradles her wrist between his palms.

“It seems like a clean break,” Carlisle murmurs. “We’ll do an x-ray to make sure but it looks like you’ll be walking home with a cast.”

“Joy,” Bella sighs, moving to draw her hand back, but he tightens his grip, a little dip in his brow that she felt the inane need to smooth out but whatever he’s thinking about he ultimately decides not to pursue and he releases her just as Alice practically waltzes through the door.

“The Chief is working late,” she says breezily as both Bella and her father turns to her. “He didn’t want you to be on your own but I told him you could stay with us for tonight.”

Bella does try to argue but between the x-ray, the adrenaline from nearly being hit running out of her system, and a telephone conversation with Charlie who sounded genuinely worried and apologetic about being out of Forks to deal with a crime near Port Angeles, Bella finds herself without the energy to argue it and sets her mind to a bit of food and then a bed, promising to make up for it in the future.

From the way Alice practically skips down the corridor it’s hard to feel like a bother.

On her arm is her new cast, signed carefully by an owlish-looking Alice who’d looked adorably surprised when Bella had proffered her the pen a spur of a moment decision, and beside her Carlisle is smiling a bit indulgently at his daughter.

Bella got the feeling Alice is the sort of get her way in most situations and she can't really fault him for it – there is something about Alice that is warm and genuine in her enthusiasm.

-

The Cullen’s house is beautiful and Bella tells Carlisle this since she’d been shooed into his car, Alice pressing up on her toes to give her father a kiss on the cheek and murmur something low before gliding for the red convertible with a wave to Bella who echoes it a bit bemusedly.

Thankfully Carlisle wasn’t the sort for empty small talk and Bella accepts his hand, allowing him to pull her out of the car and onto her feet after parking.

“It’s all Esme,” he tells her as he lets go of her, gazing towards the white house with the large broad windows looking out towards the endless stretch of forest hidden so well that she’d been half-convinced Carlisle had gone mad turning as he turned into a near invincible road. “She’s always had an eye for detail and she’s the one who makes each and every house we move into feel like a home.”

For someone so young he sounded old and Bella’s mouth twitches at the helpless warmth in his voice.

Bella is barely through the door before Esme’s gentle hand touches against her cheek, drawing and tucking brown hair behind her ear as Bella blinks at her sudden appearance.

“Alice called,” she says in that gentle voice of hers as Bella struggles against the urge to lean into the palm of her cool hand, inexplicitly drawn to this strange woman she has only met once before. “I am glad you’re alright, Bella.”

She flushes at the sound of her name, averting her gaze away from concerned amber and missing the way the two exchange glances over her head as Esme gently withdraws her hand.

“Are you hungry, dear?” she asks kindly, already drawing back, and Bella nods mutely, moving to bend down and undo the strings of her old well-born boots when Carlisle sinks down smoothly, something in her chest catching as she stills, watching as his hands carefully helped her out of them, one foot at the time.

“No use overexerting yourself,” he tells her, giving her knee a gentle squeeze before he rose tall once again.

“Thank you-“ Bella gets out, swallowing roughly and just catching herself from tripping as she turned hurriedly to follow after the woman.

-

Bella doesn’t last long.

She’s yawning half-way through the dinner after swallowing her pain-meds down with a nudge from Carlisle and she only gets through one of the offered cookies before a thumb brushes some crumbs from the corner of her lip and she finds herself steered up the steps, hushed and gently nudged along when she tries to offer some sort of protest.

“You are not a bother,” a voice murmurs as she’s tugged out of her shirt and rough jeans into something far softer before she’s lifted up and settled in the middle of a far too large bed.

The last thing she registers is the ghostly press of cool lips to her forehead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I recently watched someone watching the Twilight serie on youtube and while I've never been a fan of the whole Edward/Bella romance I did enjoy the concept of the Cullen family and I've been idly considering something like this for a long time. 
> 
> And today it was what my brain wanted to see written and I'm never one to stop and question such a thing.
> 
> I'm thinking three or five chapters for this one - I'll know for sure once I'm done with chapter 2! Which...... will probs be later tonight. Have to take a break and do some washing and so on and maybe watch something and then I'm right back at this because I have p l a n s.
> 
> I'm Artsy-death on tumblr if you want to stop by and say hi and the comment section is open business - feel free to hmu with whatever is on your mind :) 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed!


	2. The Cullen House

Bella opens her eyes to a bedroom that isn’t hers.

She’s in an unfamiliar bed in clothes that aren’t hers and she’s not nearly as panicked as she should be.

Her nose flares, drinking the strange sweetness of the dual scents as she turns, pressing into the pillow with a low groan, body twisting as she inhales deeper, letting it curl down to expand her lungs before she breathes out, eyes opening to stare at the neon green numbers of zero-eight-two-four.

A part of her wants nothing more than to remain – to curl up deeper, to soak in the scent even as her mind drags sluggishly through the muddled tiredness of something entirely foreign, searching for an explanation as the numbers tick to zero-eight-two-nine.

“I’m at the…. Cullen’s,” Bella murmurs to herself, one palm pressing tiredly against her face with a small huff, blocking out the scent as she slowly drags herself up into a sitting position, a faint sense of vertigo coming and going as she breathes out.

Her arm throbs dully in her lap but it’s not her first broken bone and she blocks it out, searching for her clothes in the low morning light casting a dull glow through the thick curtains blocking the windows as she hugs the impossibly soft covers to her chest.

Breathes out as she catches sight of them carefully folded up, her cheeks taking a faint dusting of colour at the sight of her bra at the very top of the pile.

She reaches forward, balancing on the very edge, and snatches them up, drawing back and wiggling out of the silken shorts and blouse-like shirt in matching white that clearly belonged to someone with more curves, shimmying back into her jeans with a bit of grimacing as it scraped rough against her legs.

Huffs a breath after getting her t-shirt down over her head and simply ties her hoodie around her waist before dragging a hand through her messy hair as she took in the room with more energy, rubbing a bit absently at her nose as she tried to make sense of the décor.

It was clearly meant to echo something older – the thick curtains and fine touches to the fabrics and decorations along with the large oil panting certainly made it feel almost Victorian.

But there were modern touches – electronics among them, a sleek laptop drawing her eye before flicking to the bookshelf, recognising some of them instinctively.

A knock draws her attention back to the situation at hand and despite being dressed, sans socks, Bella draws the covers to her chest with a curl of her fingers around the soft fabric.

“Come in,” she calls, softer than she meant, but whoever was on the other side must have had sharp hearing because the brass knob twists and Bella’s shoulders eases slightly at the sight of the other woman.

“Good morning,” Esme says, closing the door behind her with barely a rattle of the tray in her hands. “We already had breakfast I’m afraid but I made sure to save some for you,” she informs her as she places it down and Bella’s eyes widen at the sight of the carefully made sandwiches, a glass topped with yoghurt, another with orange juice, fresh fruit diced and waiting to be picked by hand.

It is all very different from her own lazy breakfast and her eyes trails over the crispy golden surface of the freshly baked bread, leaves green and tomatoes impossibly red and fragrant where they peek out over the cheese and ham.

With her mother Bella had been lucky to catch a mouthful or two of whatever remained from Renée’s breakfast – washing down stale bread and hard cheeses with water, the dust at the bottom of the cereal spilling into day-old milk to be consumed by a hungry mouth.

Charlie didn’t know how to cook, Bella wasn’t any better, and ordering in or sharing easy pre-made meals had become their habit.

This…

“This is too much,” Bella says, stomach knotting, suspicion blossoming as she stares down at the food.

A lifetime of having too-little should have, rationally, made food something to enjoy once she actually had access to it but in many ways Bella found it do be the direct opposite.

Food was a chore, something that needed to be partaken in and that for years had only been a constant source of bottomless emptiness swallowing down what little scraps of money she managed to save.

She knew that eating was something she needed to do but she found little joy in it.

But there’s something attractive about the splurge of colour on the plate in front of her – an offered sweetness and a promise of something made entirely for her consumption.

“It is not,” Esme rebuffs her with gentle firmness and Bella’s mouth twists. “You’re a growing young woman with a broken arm in my care and I say it is just enough.”

_In my care._

The rising sharpness turns bitter inside her chest and she swallows because Bella understands responsibility.

Her mother had, after all, been her life.

Something stings at her eyes and she bites down hard on her lower lip to distract from it, flinching in surprise when a cold thumb brushed gently over it, brown meeting amber alight with something Bella hesitates to place as Esme rubs gently against the indented skin, as if to soothe.

“None of that now,” she says and her voice is sympathetic and far more understanding that she deserves and Bella’s heart aches because the compassion and warmth in her gaze is everything she had craved when she was young. “It’s still early and a lot of things happened yesterday. It is perfectly normal to be upset after such a thing.”

 _Ah,_ Bella remembers dully as Esme shifts to tuck strands of brown behind her ear, _the accident._

There’s a part of Bella that wants nothing more than to press close, to let Esme draw her in and tuck her head beneath that gentle curve of her chin.

And there’s a part of her that is so very terrified of her reaction to the other.

Bella swallows and turns her head, brown strands slipping from Esme’s fingers, and Bella feels like the loweat of scum as Esme lets out a small sigh.

“I’ll leave it here, eat what you can and then join us, alright?” she presses gently and Bella doesn’t deserve it, doesn’t want this kindness, and her nods comes out jerky, knuckles curled white-knuckled into the fluffy covers with the sweetness still stinging at her nose.

-

Bella manages half of a bowl of fruit and some bites of the sandwich before her stomach is so twisted up that she pushes it away and touches down with her bare feet against the carpet and pads her way across it.

Outside the door her gaze flicks from one door to the other, ears straining for any sort of noise.

But any voices she picks up on comes from downstairs and she trails down, taking care in the stairs with one hand firmly on the railing least she make a fool out of herself.

“Bella – good morning,” Carlisle greets her as he steps out of the kitchen, a guiding hand coming to rest against her lower back to steer her into the living room and the empty couch there, barely catching a glance at the blonde teenage boy curled up in the armchair at the corner of the room before sinking down automatically when urged.

“How’s your pain level between one to ten and ten being the highest?” he asks as he sinks down on one knee in front of her, her wrist already caught in the palm of her hands. “Sometimes the swelling can cause it to pinch,” he murmurs as he presses down on the tips of her fingers, watching the way colour creeps back with some satisfaction.

“Four,” Bella says and Carlisle’s brow does that small dipping-thing again, a crinkle of worry, perhaps, and Bella wonders, with a touch of paranoia, if he hadn’t picked up on the lie in it and the prospect of disappointing another Cullen in a matter of minutes makes her heart twist sharply.

“The meds you gave me – they really helped,” Bella tacks on a bit hurriedly. “I’ve had broken bones before and the pain really isn’t that bad in comparison.”

Amber eyes sharpens upon hers and Bella stills – catching and curbing the ridiculous jerk of her chin which had gone up as if to bare her throat to a predator.

“There was nothing in your files about any broken bones,” Carlisle says and Bella hates whatever conclusions are being drawn, hates the thoughts that no-doubt blossom because she’d already done this song and dance once with Phil.

_I love Renée, Isabella, but what she did to you-_

“That is strange,” Bella says with a sort of distant fake confusion. “Maybe something got lost when transferring my papers from Phoenix,” she lies and Carlisle’s mouth does a strange little twist before he hums.

“Perhaps,” he allows and Bella knows with bitter surety that this isn’t the last she’ll hear of this. It makes the nails of her good hand dig into her thighs, threatening to draw blood before Carlisle settles his hand over hers and stills it with gentle firmness.

“As your doctor my advice is that you take another one of your pain meds. They’ll help ease the swelling as well.” He reaches for the table beside her, turning her palm up with the other and settling a round white pill there. “Your father called to let you know he’ll be here around noon – I have to head to work and Esme is finishing up the last on a project that needs to be shipped today. She said to let you know that she won’t mind a bit of company –she’ll be her office which is the last door on the right in the left corridor upstairs.”

Bella’s eyes flicks to the blond boy she’d seen and Carlisle’s gaze follows with an _ah_ of realization.

“Jasper is excused for the day – he has a check-up down at the hospital with me.” The blond – _Jasper_ – is watching her with the same golden eyes of the rest of his family and he tilts his head with far too knowing eyes, making her break eye contact first.

Bella turns back to Carlisle as he presses a glass of water into her hand and she dutifully swallows the pill down – something inside of her luxuriating at the smile of approval this gains her.

-

Carlisle and Jasper leaves and Bella drags her fingers through her hair, grimacing as some of the knots catches at her fingers and tugging them through with some impatience and a sting of pain before letting it fall beside her injured one in her lap.

The swelling has gone down some – her fingers almost look normal where they peek up over the wrap and while the throb of hot pain is distracting it isn’t new.

The living room she finds herself in is far more modern than the bedroom, almost as if someone had taken the time to make sure no-one would think twice about it. It’s sleek and matches well with the overall feel of the house while not stealing away from the homely sort of warmth the decorations, paintings and personal touches added to.

The television was bracketed by what felt like a wall of movies and Bella sees everything from a proper Disney collection in order (sans Pinocchio) to a spread of horror. Another shelf crowded with documentaries of all sorts and Bella strongly suspected there were more stored away somewhere judging by the way each category of movies slotted perfectly together row after row.

The area Jasper had been seated in contained shelves with more books, a nook to play chess in judging by the pattern, and little knick-knacks and expensive car models on a shelf of its own among a generous gathering of modern books that makes her fingers itch to touch.

A lot of the books are DIY-books, everything from crafts to engines and woodworking to books on taking care of different gardens and entire encyclopaedias on flora native to different areas in the world.

Bella had always loved the library near them and the sheer knowledge contained in this single house made her _want_ in a way that was familiar – her mind lingering on the old first editions she’d seen inside Esme and Carlisle’s room.

Left with little to do Bella eventually turns her gaze to the stairs and she draws her broken arm closer to her chest, feeling oddly embarrassed by her reaction to Esme offering something as normal as _food._

It was probably a perfectly normal, standard run-of-the-mill breakfast in the Cullen house and she’d overreacted to it.

Like a _child._

Esme had been nothing but kind to her – going out of her way to help her with the recipe and making sure she was comfortable after turning up on her porch to stay the night after breaking her arm, making sure she was taken care of instead of returning her home to an empty house.

Bella bites down on her lower lip and hesitantly makes her way up the stairs, the carpet soft beneath her bare toes when she steps into the hallway, taking a left after glancing briefly right towards the bedroom where she’d spent the night, a thought taking hold and refusing to leave her alone as she threaded her way down and raises her fist to give a short knock before she could talk herself out of.

“Come it,” Esme’s voice rings out and Bella turns the knob and pushes forward, breath stolen out of her.

The room is crowded – the materials reigning from different kinds of stones and wood artfully crafted into statues or furniture, an entire wall spilling with rolls of thick fabric waiting to be used.

Another wall was taken up by tools, some of them electronic, other meant to be used by hand to carefully add the miniscule details like that on the elegant ballerina tossing her braided hair back, leg extended and back bent, enormous finely-crafted wings pulling her down.

In another a pouncing fox touched paws down on a flat curve of wood with a tiny mouse peeking up between its paws, the fur tufty and thick at its neck, snout open to devour.

In the midst of it all is Esme, protective glasses pushed up into her hair, folded down on the floor and working oil over the finishing touches on such a delicately shaped chair in dark wood that Bella finds herself entranced with every gently dip of the small brush.

“I-“ Bella opens her mouth but the words won’t come, stuck inside her throat as she swallows thickly.

“Come here,” Esme beckons and Bella takes a stumbling step forward, sinking down as the older woman draws a pillow down from a chair beside her and Bella settles on her knees upon it, peeking up at the other through her lashes.

“Have you done any woodworking before?” Esme inquiries as she re-dips the brush into the container, taking care to wipe it at the edge before sweeping it up in an elegant arch in one of the curling dips in the chair’s leg.

“No,” Bella admits, a gnawing _want_ in her chest.

How many times had she not wished Renée would have brought her along for one of her many schemes and ideas and DIY-projects? Things that only cost money and left Bella alone in their apartment for hours upon hours of time, sometimes spanning entire days and even weeks but never failed to make her _hope._

That craving to spend with her mother, to be part of something and not just something remembered at the worst of times or forgotten completely as the woman stumbled in drunk with another unfamiliar man, both reeking of alcohol as Bella pressed herself into a wardrobe or nook in the tiny apartment with only a single bedroom, palms pressed over her ears and eyes squeezed shut.

Esme works in silence and Bella watches until the last finishing touch leaves the entire thing gleaming almost inky black, her shoulders slowly relaxing, almost entranced by the entire thing.

Disappointment curls heavy in her gut when Esme rises smoothly and Bella nibbles on her lower lip to distract herself – trying to come to terms with the odd feeling in her chest when Esme returns and folds down, placing a gathering of tools beside her and a block of wood already roughly shaped to the take the form of an animal.

The older woman leans against the back of a heavy couch in rich redwood and spreads her legs out.

“Here,” she beckons. “Let me show you.”

Bella stares at her and then she slowly rises up, feeling awkward and a bit unsure as she takes a step forward but when Esme reaches out she slips her hand into the other’s and she doesn’t resist when Esme pulls her down, her rump settling between the spread of her legs, her back pressing against the swell of Esme’s breasts as an arm loops around her.

Bella’s shoulders goes tense, that sweet scent from the morning filling her nose and lungs, too aware and not sure what to do with another human being so close to her.

Can’t recall the last time someone willingly enfolded her into their arms.

 _What are you doing?_ Her mind wonders but it gets forgotten between one breath and the next.

Esme rests her chin on her shoulder and Bella swallows as a small whittling tool is settled into her good hand, Esme turning the wooden piece, arms pressing down gently over her own as she shifts it between her hands where they could both see it.

“Look at the shape of it.” Esme’s breath ghosts cool against her cheek, reaching to guide Bella’s fingers over it, letting her feel the peak of budding ears, her thumb pressed down to feel the arch of its nose. “I was thinking a doe,” the other murmurs and Bella tries to imagine the proud rise of its neck, the hooves firm and steady against the ground, a tiny tail flickering back on its rump.

Abject terror of the idea of ruining it before it could even be made nearly makes her drop it but Esme merely tightens her grip on her good hand and she finds her fingers curling reluctantly around a small whittling tool.

Esme doesn’t let go – her chin resting gently on Bella’s shoulder, drawing her just a tiny bit tighter, shifting them just a little bit closer to slot together in a way that tugs at something deep, deep inside of Bella as the older woman guides her with touch and praise that makes her warm, squirming a bit in embarrassment as she ducks her head to a curl of Esme’s lips and a soft nuzzle against her neck that only makes it worse.

 _You just met her,_ her mind hisses as Bella struggles to make sense of her reaction and response, the haze from the pain meds making it hard to focus when Esme gently relieves her off the tools and draws her tight with a soft and soothing _sssh_ , hand stroking gently over her hair as she’s drawn up and tucked against her chest at her breast.

The tumble of confusing want makes her turn her head to hide into the soft sweater of the other to soft laugh and a kiss pressing down against her temple.

“It’s alright baby girl,” Esme soothes and something lurches in her chest at the nickname. “You’re just tired from the pain meds. Rest and you’ll feel better in a bit.”

Bella doesn’t know how long they remain as such – Esme idly humming as Bella slips into a deep and content half-slumber, soothed in a way that she knows is strange and shouldn’t be right but that at that very moment is everything that Bella had ever craved from her own mother.

-

Reality returns with the abrupt and loud noise from her phone – air filling her lungs and a startled noise escaping her as she jerks, hand shooting down and curling around the mobile in an ingrained response that has her staring at a familiar number with her heart pounding hard inside her chest.

Her mouth twists and she’s only distantly aware of the way Esme has shifted to draw her back into the safe cocoon of her arms, her head tucked beneath her chin, stiff-limbed and reluctant as she is as the phone keeps vibrating and echoing that haunting melody that she had spent night after lonely night waiting on, desperate and simultaneously dreading to hear any news about her way-ward mother.

For the first time since her mother’s marriage and her own consequent move to Forks there’s something ugly in her chest, a twist of something she doesn’t want to admit to as she presses the green button and shits it to her ear.

“Hello-“

 _“Why,”_ her mother’s voice comes fast and heavy with disappointment, _“am I hearing about you getting hurt nearly a day after it happened and from_ Charlie?”

The way her mother’s tongue curls around her father’s name _aches_ and her fingers clenches around the plastic of the phone as she hunches her shoulders forward.

“I’m-“

 _“You’re always sorry,”_ Renée sighs through the phone. _“All you had to do was pick up the phone-"_

“I kno-“

_“-dial my number and say, 'hi Mom! Just calling to let you know I was in an accident but that I’m OK'-“_

“I-“

_“- is that really so hard? Paul says hi, by the way! We’re in Michigan, would you believe it-?”_

Bella stares a bit dully at one of the statues; a squirrel curled protectively around an acorn, large tail fluffed out in a swipe to hide it further from view, eyes gleaming with warning.

It is hard not to notice that her mother hadn’t bothered to ask how she was even if it’s an old sort of pattern in their relationship.

Renée lived for herself – free spirited as she was – and Bella had always just been along for the ride.

She tenses when fingers gently curl around her own but she can’t find it in herself to resist when Esme pulls the phone out of her grip and simply presses the red button before powering the phone off completely and placing it aside.

The silence between them feels heavy and Bella strangely embarrassed for the little care her own mother had just shown her.

“She’s not always like that,” Bella tries to defend but the words feel weak and empty on her tongue. “She’s just – there’s a lot going on with her new marriage and she doesn’t always have-“ _time._

Bella bites down on her lip, worrying it as she stares down at her hands limp in her lap.

“She’s just busy,” she presses because anything else is unacceptable and Bella isn’t ready for that.

Slowly Esme shifts and draws her into a gentle hug and Bella squeezes her eyes shut and pretends she doesn’t feel the sting of tears in her eyes where she sits, the doe abandoned aside and a stranger's arms offering more comfort than her own mother ever had.

-

Charlie doesn’t say much when he picks her up other than gruff sort of _are you alright?_ and an awkward squeeze of her shoulder which she offers a weak smile to.

She waves goodbye to Esme who’d made Charlie go red and clear his throat twice as he thanked her for looking after his daughter.

“Bella is welcome here anytime she wants,” Esme says and Bella lifts her gaze, catching those curious amber eyes of the woman and flushing slightly at the steadfast attention on herself, quite unable to hold it as she ducks her head with a strange and heady twist inside her chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uh, five chapters then. I'm slow-burning this because I wanted to affirm their relationship properly and I'm having way fun with their dynamics.
> 
> Thank you for your comments and kudos <3 I was absolutely delighted to have been crowned fairy smut mother during the night, what a treat! I'll get back to you after I've taken a long nap because I'm dead tired. Phew. 
> 
> I don't know why I woke up as early as I did today but it did mean this chapter got finished so I'll be able to work on chap 3 later and maybe have it up later today if you're cute (which you always are, so, 90% sure I'll have it up before I hit the bed).
> 
> Comment field is open business and you can find me on tumblr as artsy-death~
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


	3. Sleepover

Time passes, her wrist heals up without complications and the pain meds remain untouched inside the desk by her bed, a rattle of a reminder when she hits her knee or toes against it to a slight swear of frustration after using the bathroom in the middle of the night.

Now aware and introduced to the Cullen family it is hard not to take notice of the strange rumours about them inside the school and Bella finds her eyes dipping more than once to the table containing the five siblings.

Jasper, Alice, Rosalie, Edward and Emmett.

Of the five Alice is the only one she doesn’t quite manage to dodge for all that quick glances, waves and something oddly impatient in Alice’s gaze makes her feel guilty for reasons quite beyond her.

She tells absolutely no-one she cracks her plaster open at home and pries it open, grimacing at the sweaty odour and the strange feeling of having her hand back but she dutifully follows the google advice of getting full-range motion back into it for nearly two weeks before she’s comfortably convinced it’d gone well.

“So… any plans this weekend?” Charlie presses with bad nonchalance nearly two months after her stay at the Cullen’s and Bella crams an enormous spoon of cereal into her mouth, cheeks puffing out as she levels him with an unimpressed look as she slowly chews her way through it. “That’s a no, huh?” he says, stroking a bit absently at the tail-end of his moustache. “You know, your Mom phoned – wondered if maybe you want to spend your Christmas with her and your new step-father.”

The cereal turns to sludge inside her mouth.

“You – I don’t know what to do, Bells,” Charlie says with some frustration. “You’re not making friends and you barely get out of the house. Maybe – maybe Forks wasn’t right for you?” he says this almost helplessly but Bella barely hears him over the dull ringing inside her ears.

“You’re – you’re kicking me out?” she gets out after forcing her throat to work around the food, spoon clinging dully into the half-full bowl.

“No- no I’m not – I’m _concerned_ Bella!” Charlie presses hurriedly and his eyes are earnest when she meets them.

“I- what if I had plans?” she nearly spits the words out. “I’m not some kind of _hermit-“_

The phone in her pocket rings, loudly, an unfamiliar melody since she personalized the only two number she kept in it and she fumbles for it, staring down at a number she doesn’t recognise before hesitantly pressing the green button.

 _“Bella!”_ Alice’s excited voice rings out loud enough for even Charlie to pick up on it and his eyebrows rises noticeably even as he leans back to give her some measure of privacy.

“Alice,” Bella breathes out. “I was just – thinking about you,” she says, regretting the awkward word choice nearly immediately but the pixie girl lets out a light tinkling laugh in response.

 _“I’m happy to hear that!”_ Alice says with enthusiasm. _“Are you doing anything this weekend?”_

“I- no?” Bella squeaks out, not quite able to believe the way fate was slotting together in front of her eyes.

 _“My siblings – they’re heading out for a camping trip with a family friend Friday through Sunday and I’m home_ all _alone.”_ There’s a definitive emphasis to a near whine here with clear significance and Bella finds her mouth twitching up. _“And I thought to myself: ‘who would make an excellent sleepover buddy?’ and here we are! So- what do you say, friend?”_

“I’d like that,” Bella says quietly, a strange curl of anxiousness mixing with a twist of anticipation. “When you say all alone-“

 _“Mom and Dad will be home, of course,”_ Alice says brightly. _“Does your Dad want to talk to them? Gimme a sec!”_

Bella stares down at the phone in a bit of bemusement but Charlie is, indeed, holding a hand out and she stretches it out for him, tipping into his waiting palm as he cleared his throat and lifted it up.

“Hello? Mrs Cullen! Yes – of course,” Charlie stammered and Bella took her chance to slink away from the table and up the stairs, taking them two at a time with her heart pounding hard inside her chest.

-

Bella has never been to a sleepover before and she feels horribly ill-prepared as Charlie drops her off, his mouth twitching as she shooed him away, backpack dangling off her shoulder.

“I’m just happy to see you excited about something,” he tells her, waving as he started backing out, and Bella touches her fingers to the curl of her mouth self-consciously and spends nearly a minute trudging down the road to the house forcing it to smooth out into something less overexcited.

 _It’s just Alice,_ Bella thinks to herself. _And Carlisle and Esme…_

Esme who’d held her cradled to her chest with soft touches and the gentle brush of a hand over her head and-

 _Don’t think about it,_ Bella reminds herself, swallowing as she braved the stairs to the wide beautiful house and knocked twice, twitching as the door was nearly yanked off its hinges and giving Alice a bit of an awkward smile.

“He-“ Bella blinks as lips presses against her cheek and hands clasps her wrist, pulling her inside with surprising strength and enthusiasm and nearly making her tumble if not for Carlisle reaching out to steady her.

“Careful there Alice,” he cautions, their eyes meeting as Bella looks up and promptly flushes.

“But Bella is here!” Alice practically squeaks, all but vibrating in place. “And there’s so much to _do_ -“

“Alice,” Carlisle intones and the girl throws her hands up.

“Fine.” She points to Bella. “Carlisle knows you didn’t return to the hospital and remove your plaster so he wants to be all _Doctor_ and Mom and I still have to go pick up snacks – can you believe be forgot snacks!?” She sounds genuinely upset about it.

“It’s fine-” Bella tries but Alice shakes her head.

“We’ll be back in twenty,” she promises fiercely as Esme steps into the room, bag hanging off her shoulder and car keys dangling from her index finger.

“Hello dear,” she greets Bella with a warm smile, arms opening, and Bella moves forward before she can think twice about it, letting the older woman draw her close for a firm squeeze and a press of her lips against her temple.

Esme smells just as Bella remembered her – the soothing sweet scent filling her nose and easing a tension in her shoulders she wasn’t even aware of.

“There’s sandwiches in the fridge if you’re hungry,” Esme says with a gentle brush to tuck strands of brown behind Bella’s ear. “ _Nuestra casa es su case_ ,” she affirms with a little wink.

“I think Bella will survive thirty minutes in my care,” Carlisle says just a tad drily.

 _“Twenty,”_ Alice says with emphasis. “Now hurry up!” she says, already half-way to the car when Bella cranes her head to look after her.

“Ever impatient that girl,” Carlisle says fondly, tilting his head and claiming Esme’s mouth in an achingly soft kiss only to laugh and break it off before it could deepen when a loud honk came from the car in the driveway.

Bella swallows, her mouth strangely dry as she raised her hand in a wave of goodbye as the door closed shut.

-

Bella gets the impression Carlisle is _concerned_ and, possibly, _worried_ which is such a strange thing to be as he rubs his thumb gently against the inside of her wrist.

“There’s a reason we ask that you return to the hospital to have your cast removed,” he says quietly as Bella stares down at the way his cool, pale hand envelopes her own – fingers long and strong, her gaze lingering on the fine, nearly golden hair, brushing up his knuckles.

Despite touching her for nearly five minutes now his skin is just as cold but for all that it’s strange it’s also soothing and she’s afraid he’ll withdraw if she was to question it.

So she keeps her mouth shut and follows his quiet instructions, pressing fingers together and rolling and turning her wrist in his grasp as he felt the way her bones shifts beneath her skin.

“I followed the instructions from the medical hospital in Boston,” Bella says quietly as he presses down gently to straighten out her fingers with a small sigh.

“It looks good,” he tells her earnestly, eyes intent on hers as he lifts his head. “But you were lucky. Bella – you have to understand it doesn’t look good from the point of someone in the medical profession when a patient comes in with old broken bones that doesn’t exist in the system.” His thumb brushes over the knuckle of her ring-finger, still crooked despite her best effort at straightening it out when she was nine.

She tries to pull it back but he tightens his grip. “I am only concerned,” he presses and Bella’s mouth twists.

“We didn’t have medical insurance,” she confesses in a low voice, refusing to look at him.

“That doesn’t explain why you have at least two broken fractures in your wrist only.”

The dip of his brow during their first meeting suddenly makes sense and Bella doesn’t know what to tell him.

Her mother had had several boyfriends – men that came and went into her life. Some of them had lasted longer than others but Bella couldn’t remember a single one except Phil who’d made it past the two month mark.

Thing was? Not all of them were good and Bella had become more than familiar with the violence that came with men who didn’t have the patience or time to spare the kid of their one night stand.

Had been tripped and shoved and locked out of the apartment, had shoved more than one off her vomiting mother only to get a slap back, always lashing out, and Bella had never been the most steady on her feet.

Then there had been people at work – moonlighting at odd jobs where people didn’t hesitate to reach out an tug at someone visibly younger and weaker and she’d taken a beating over being robbed on more than one occasion.

Bella knows and understands that things hadn’t been right but voicing it would make it _real._

_I love your mother, Isabella, but what she did to you-_

“Look at me,” he says and Bella reluctantly drags her eyes up to meet those strangely intent eyes. “Are you safe, right now?”

The question settles slowly and her fingers twitches in his grip, curling to grasp at his much larger hand.

“I am,” she says, touched by his concern for all that it makes her ache.

Even Charlie hadn’t stopped to ask why his only daughter, after years of avoiding Forks, had chosen to move there permanently.

 _Why do you care?_ Bella wonders a bit desperately as he gives her hand a gentle squeeze and she wonders at the regret she feels when he lets go of her.

-

Alice wasn’t joking about the snacks, Bella soon learns, and it’s hard to resist the enthusiastic pixie when she’s in pyjamas and surrounded by a virtual sea of different snacks – everything from crisps to bags of candies and little containers with more toys that candy that Alice was already eagerly turning this and there.

Bella’s favourite so far was the Pokémon mug with a swirly plastic straw and a plump Pikachu on top which she’d claimed for herself and poured a mixture of sodas into under Alice’s curious gaze only to have it eagerly copied into a mug with a TMNT on top, the orange clothed Michelangelo grinning bright and wide with a pizza in the flat of his four-fingered hand, a piece dangling out of his mouth.

“This is neat,” Alice says with clear fascination as the soda swirls up and down through the straw and Bella can’t exactly protest about it when she’s enjoying it just as much.

They watch movies, taking turns to choose between the different Disney movies, and Bella is nodding off to the Lion King when an arm slides around her back, the other beneath her knees, lifting her up as another hand plucks the mug from where she’d wrapped herself around it- hushing her when she gave a tired noise of protest.

“It’ll be right there when you wake up,” a familiar voice promises and Bella blinks blearily at the caramel brown hair of the woman carrying her, head tucked close to her chest as Esme carried her up the stairs with an ease that shouldn’t be possible for all that Bella’s tired mind refuses to linger on it.

She’s carried into a familiar room, her hand tangling into the comfort of Esme’s shirt and shifting closer to the woman to a soft low purr-like sound rumbling through the woman's chest and a hand stroking over her head as Esme settled down on the bed with Bella all but curled up in her lap.

“At least she’s already in her pyjamas this time,” a male voice murmurs and Bella peers up at Carlisle as the back of his knuckles strokes gently against her cheek. “Hey there sleepyhead,” he murmurs with an impossibly soft smile that couldn’t be meant for her. “Time for bed.”

Bella shakes her head against Esme’s chest. “You- you won’t have anywhere to sleep,” she says thickly, the concern from her last stay blossoming up to a furrow in the dip of her brow even as she tightened her grip on Esme’s cardigan.

“Do you want us to stay, baby girl?” Esme’s voice settles soothingly against her senses. “We could stay right here with you,” she promises softly and Bella’s breath hitches because-

 _“Yes,”_ she agrees with a soft noise of want.

“Good girl,” Esme praises her and Bella’s fingers twitches at the words, the rustle of clothes registering distantly to her senses. “Carlisle will take you for a moment and then you’ll be right back with me, alright little one?” Esme murmurs with a soft kiss against her forehead and Bella allows herself to be traded from one pair of arms to another, breath hitching as cool skin registered against her senses, cheek pressing up against a bare chest.

Carlisle’s palm is firm and steady against her shoulder where he holds her close to him and Bella feels _safe_ in the arms of these two strangers, drawn in a way that should be sending warning bells at the back of her mind but _wasn’t._

Esme settles back into the bed, cover drawn back, and Bella sinks willingly against her, curling to press as close as physically possible, nosing against the woman’s neck to inhale that sweet scent there, fingers curling into a silken blouse with a soft noise of content as Carlisle tucks them both in.

-

“I’m leaving then,” Alice says from the door opening, eyes lingering briefly on the human curled up as safe as could be in the arms of Esme who didn’t as much as glance up, fingers running through the dark brown strands of the girl. “She might protest,” Alice cautions. “But she needs it. Needs _you._ ”

“We know,” Carlisle says seriously. “We’ll be careful,” he promises her.

“Good.” Alice relaxes. “She’ll be a good addition to this family,” she says with surety. “I’ll let the others know you said hello!”

Normally she would have pushed forward, planted a kiss on either of their cheek, but a vampire imprinting was a careful thing to handle and it would take time for Bella to come to terms with it, thrown so suddenly into it and not understanding her own response to the two vampires.

But they had given her time already and Alice had spent far too much of it watching the human stumble through her visions, doing the bare minimum to function, and she’d finally taken things into her own hands to speed it up.

 _It’ll be alright,_ Alice thinks to herself in reassurance as she turns on her heels and flashes out of the house, door clicking shut behind her as she took to the forest and the scent trail leading her towards her mate and her siblings.

-

Vampiric imprinting wasn’t like the involuntary thing the wolves experienced but there’d been no such thing as shifters when Marcus of the Volturi coined the term centuries earlier.

Imprinting as a vampire was about _claim_ and _want._ Carlisle had witnessed it first-hand some eighty years earlier when Rosalie sunk to her knees beside a dying Emmett and claimed him for herself in an act of defiance against his fate.

It wasn’t the first time Rosalie had seen death but something had drawn her Emmett and she’d made the decision to change him and when he woke up she’d made her first attempt at reaching out to another since her own change.

Imprinting was speculated to fill some sort of need between both partners and while he couldn’t be sure what had cemented it he hadn’t been able to get Esme’s words out of his mind for days after her first meeting with the human girl.

_You should have seen her, Carlisle. She needs-_

**Us.**

It had slotted together so naturally when he saw her at the hospital beside Alice, broken arm hidden, as if it was an _inconvenience_ and, most alarmingly, something that she was reluctant to draw attention to.

It had sent all sorts of warning signs going off – his superior gaze picking up the broken finger, the little bump where the bridge of her nose had once snapped, the scrapes where her skin had healed anew, the sallow tiredness and the clear _loss_ that clung to her.

And it had just – _shifted._ Her scent had gone from _food_ to something else, something that belonged solely to _them._

**Ours.**

The claim was intent, the want consuming, and having her here with them – _finally_ – it made him never want to let go.

His gaze drinks the way her hair falls dark against the paleness of her skin, reminding him in many ways of the young Esme Platt, their likeness undeniable where she sleeps all curled up against his mate’s breast, chest rising and falling, warm and so undeniably _alive_.

He finds himself reaching out, brushing his fingers over the old soft t-shirt she’d changed into with a brush of colour against her cheeks – the faded pattern of a band-print on the front and her scent so ingrained into it that not even Alice could voice anything against it though her smile had strained, ever the fashionista.

Carlisle finds that he likes it, shifting, his palm pressing down beside them as he leant forward and inhaled, his wife’s eyes watching him keenly, eyes darkly golden.

“She smells so _good_ ,” Carlisle groans as he sinks closer, rolling his hips up against the swell of her rump, feeling himself hardening as he grinds himself slowly up against her to a soft noise, fingers curling tighter into Esme’s blouse as she shifted her hips, the swell of his cock dragging down and over the warmth of her cunt with a sharp inhalation as he pressed his forehead down against her back with a shudder.

Esme combs her hair to the side, revealing the girl’s sleeping face, index and middle-finger gliding down to press against her lower lip, mouth opening in response to allow them inside, a low rhythmic sucking starting up almost immediately as Esme watches her, feeling the warm mouth and wet tongue work against her with some awe.

Carlisle swallows back venom at the sight, dipping down and nuzzling against the pale neck of their human.

“I know where I want to see that mouth,” he murmurs into the girl’s hair, hand dipping down to brush over an already hard nipple straining against the fabric and Esme’s eyes darken even further as she slips her finger’s out of the girl’s mouth with a brush of her thumb to sever the strand of saliva that clings to her.

Esme dips a hand down, undoing the first three buttons on her blouse, a quiver of excitement running through her as she bared her breast and nudges the girl carefully, shifting until her warm breath ghosted over the hard nipple, pressing it up against her lip, Bella’s head turning instinctively to envelope it with a hard suck that made Esme groan low as warm wetness enveloped her, nursing hungrily even in her sleep.

Esme feels the wetness between her legs grow with every rhythmic sucking while Carlisle rocks idly against Bella’s rump, pressing her closer to Esme who tangles her fingers into the girl’s hair, pressing her down as she shifted, grinding against the girl’s thigh as Carlisle levelled more of his weight upon them both.

“Look at her,” he gasps, tugging his pants and underwear down, his cock hard and purple where it jutted out proudly, the size difference obscene as he tugged Bella's shorts and underwear half-way down her thighs and pressed his cock forward, letting it slide through her folds with a groan at the sheer heat of her core radiating against him, his grip tightening as he rutted up against her.

“ _Carlisle,”_ Esme groans, walls clenching down, eyes fixated on the way pink lips frame her nipple, muscles guided by age-old instincts and seeking milk where there was none while her husband pressed against her with growing desperation, nose flaring as he pressed down and inhaled more of their combined scents.

“Fuck-“ he swears, shifting her to have one leg fall out on either side of his wife’s hips, yanking Esme's underwear off with impatience as her hips rose sharply up as he pressed forward with a growl, mashing their girl between them as he spread her folds apart and sunk into the aching and familiar feel of her walls gripping him tight as the head of his cock slammed up against her cervix.

Esme inhales sharply at the feel of him, at the way Bella turns to keep her mouth firmly attached as Carlisle’s thrust pushed her forward as he fucked deeper and harder into his mate, dragging the girl’s shirt up to bare her back, tongue flattening and dragging hungrily up het spine as he felt his balls tightening embarrassingly fast.

Carlisle can't resist palming the pale globes of her rump, half-bared where he hadn't bothered to pull her shorts back up, dipping and sliding below the hem of the checkered fabric as he grasped and kneaded the flesh with forced restraint.

He gasps and lurches forward, their lips meeting over the girl’s shoulder as he slammed deep into his mate, emptying himself into her core against the womb that would never carry his children.

He shudders, pulling himself out and slipping his fingers into her instead, grinding his palm against her clit as he fucks into her, forcing her over the edge with a jerk and a low moan as she clenched rhythmically around him as he slowly eases back and pulls his fingers out of her, sticky with their combined want.

Esme undoes the last of her buttons, baring her other breast, a long look exchanged, and Carlisle swallows as he dips back into her, scooping out his semen and the clear sticky liquid of her cum and drips it upon Esme’s bare nipple with a little quiver of excitement as the opaque liquid clings to the small peak.

He repeats it before gentle shifting the girl, both watching in eerie silence, frozen in vampiric stillness as her forehead furrowed with a little whimper or protest before her mouth opened up with a groan of hunger as the wet nipple pressed up against her lips and she sucked down hard, swallowing their essence with an eager noise.

Carlisle gathers more and nudges it up against her lips, watching her tongue swipe out to suck it down before turning to nurse contently as he settles down beside them with a sigh, watching his wife and nursing baby girl with a possessive sort of contentedness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .... So. Welcome to this chapter? 
> 
> Vampires are possessive creatures and I had great fun with this chapter - tried to balance it out a bit with other POVs. Might do more of that, might not - depends a bit on how I decide to play that last two chapters? I am leaning towards weighing in with Esme's POV as well because... you know... it's _Esme_. 
> 
> Ever so glad for your support, makes my writer heart all happy and sharing all the more enjoyable<3 
> 
> Comment field is open business - let me know what you think!
> 
> I'm artsy-death on tumblr if you want to swing by there and this has been chapter 3 of Don't Be Blue~
> 
> [On a side-note: tomorrow I'm travelling again for work but I'm bringing my computer with me this time so I'm hoping to get some writing done while gone. If I'm lucky I'll have some wi-fi to upload as well but otherwise I'm back home Sunday and I'll get some stuff up then.]
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


	4. Lazy Saturday

Bella wakes in a strange sudden haze, aware of the hand tangled in her hair and a deep feeling of contentedness, mouth working rhythmically against a hard nub, her nose filled with that wonderful sweet scent.

“Good morning sleepyhead,” a voice greets her, so low, so gentle, careful not to startle as the back of Carlisle’s knuckles brushes against her cheek when she pries her eyes open in a daze, a whimper muffled and soothed by lips pressing against her forehead.

The situation registering slowly to her muzzy senses, mouth pausing as her tongue swept up against the soft peak of something that shouldn’t be in her mouth, horror running like a shot of cold down her spine as she opened her mouth, nipple slipping out, the bare breasts and just _who_ she was attached to making her pale as she pushes back.

“Esme,” she gets out at the sight of caramel curls and golden eyes watching her with gentleness that shouldn’t be directed towards her, unashamedly bare where her blouse gaped open to reveal breasts heavy in a way that indicated that they had once carried milk for all that Bella knew none of the Cullen children were biologically hers.

“I’m sorry-“ Bella blurts out, humiliation at her actions, at what she’d done, burning livid hot through her as she draws her hands back as if burnt.

“Don’t be,” Esme soothes, drawing up into a sitting position as Bella froze, Carlisle’s hand pressing firmly against her back to prevent her escape. “You drew comfort from it, there’s nothing to be ashamed of,” the woman reassures her, as if it was perfectly normal for a seventeen-year-old she barely knew to be attached to her breast like a- like a _baby._

Disgust at herself coils inside her chest and she shakes her head, mouth twisting up.

“Don’t think too much about it,” Esme says, fingers reaching out to brush against Bella’s brow, ignoring the way she flinches back before stilling, swallowing thickly at the touch of cool fingers, heart pounding hard inside her chest as Carlisle shifts closer behind her, one arm settling against the back of her shoulders.

“I should leave,” Bella squeezes out, the situation odd – their calm eerie. As if it was all just another day in their perfect lives and- “I’m not- it’s not-“

“Isn’t _what_?” Esme asks, brushing over hair to tuck a few stray pieces behind her ear in a motion that is so _motherly_ that whatever Bella feels shifts into an odd regret when Esme draws back, eyes playful when she leans forward and presses a kiss to the tip of Bella’s nose to a little wrinkle.

“Don’t overthink it,” Esme encourages and Bella swallows thickly as she averts her eyes from the golden pair of the older woman.

-

Bella spends the morning deeply distracted – on edge and unable to relax, teeth worrying her lower lip to a near bruise before she forces to stop with a noise of frustration where she’s curled up alone one the couch, a movie running unacknowledged on the television.

Alice had left in the middle of the night but Bella had been too wrapped up in herself to ask _why_ and for some reason she’d agreed to stay anyway which left her on the couch by her lonesome as Esme worked away on the upper floor while Carlisle was wrapped up in something in his office.

Both had been apologetic but it was still more company than she would have had at home since Charlie had left to go fishing with Billy who’d invited him along and she had a standing invitation with both Esme and Carlisle that she couldn’t get herself to take up on, leg bouncing and frustration mounting so high that she finally clicks the television off.

But the lack of noise is a mistake, Bella realizes almost immediately, her mind dipping instantly to the morning – to the feeling of a peaking nipple inside her mouth, the way her mind had hazed into a focus as she sucked at it, the strange feeling of _comfort._

_Don’t overthink it._

_How can I not?_ Bella wonders a bit desperately, feeling a curl of embarrassing wetness between her thighs as the memory, at the sheer _want_ that coursed through her, ugly and wrong and messed up in a hundred different ways.

 _They’re married,_ Bella thinks even as she forces back a whimper, hand clamping down over her jeans with a jerk of her hips, oversensitive and craving, walls clenching down on nothing as she tips onto her back, hips rolling up against her hand as need courses through her.

 _They’re old enough to be your parents_ her mind informs her even as trembling hands undoes the button of her jeans and pulls the zipper down, the noise too loud in the quiet house, her ears painfully focused on any sound or tell from the upper floor as she nudges them half-way down her thighs and dips her hand into her panties.

Bella drags the hem of her shirt up, teeth clenching down on it to muffle a desperate noise as she arches up with a whine, wet and so painfully oversensitive that the slightest touch makes her toes curl, hips pushing up.

 _They could see you,_ her mind whispers as she curls two fingers into herself, the pads of her fingers pressing up against the sensitive bundle of nerves near the entrance, gliding achingly against it as she turns her head into the pillows of the couch, walls clenching down wetly on her fingers as she works them into her, angling to grind the heel of her palm down against her clit with a jerk.

 _Hear how wet you are-_ **filthy** _,_ her mind hisses as she buries her fingers deep and works her hips up against them, cool air brushing over her bared stomach, teeth gnashing down on the shirt in her mouth as she jerks once, twice, wetness spilling against her fingers as her walls clenches down rhythmically, trying to pull her deeper she slowly relaxes onto her back, knees half-folded where she’d drawn her feet up, pulling her fingers out with a little twitch and lifting them up above her face, spreading them out with sticky wetness clinging to them.

 _Disgusting,_ her mind informs her and Bella dips her fingers into her mouth, cleaning them off any evidence in long languish sucks.

-

Bella wakes to a hand pressing down against her forehead, a startled little jerk and eyes prying open to find Esme seated on the couch beside her.

“Hey,” Esme says softly and Bella presses into her palm, sighing with a little half-stretch of her shoulders before settling back, relaxing into the gentle touch. “You up for some lunch, baby girl?”

“Not really hungry,” Bella admits, eyes lidding.

“You need to eat something.” Esme brushes the pads of her index and middle finger down to the tip of her nose where she gave it a little tweak with her knuckles. “How about some fruit? Or a bowl of oatmeal?”

“Fruit then,” Bella agrees.

“Fruit it is,” Esme agrees with a smile and Bella opens one eye to watch her as she rises and threads on quiet steps towards the kitchen, a funny little twist in her stomach as she closes her eyes and stretches, turning into her side with a little sigh.

She must have dozed off again because she opens her eyes, finding herself nudged up and then settled with her head in Esme’s lap, a curl of confusion disappearing when something sweet pressed against her lips – mouth parting to allow the apple slice into her mouth, crunching down as she hesitantly slants a look up at Esme.

But the woman is reaching to turn on the television, the bowl of fruit half-curled in the crook of her left arm as sound flooded the room, turned down to something comfortable before Esme trades the remote for another piece of fruit and Bella opens her mouth, a soft brush of colour spreading over her cheeks as she turns her head and attention to the movie.

Pieces of apples mixes with halves of grapes, tart blueberries and blackberries and cherries with their cores already removed and Bella finds it hard to resist even when her stomach lets her know that she’s full- accepting three more pieces before denying a fourth.

There’s a tense moment where Bella swears her heart stills – afraid that Esme would move without the excuse of fruit to feed her.

But the bowl is placed aside and Bella breathes out softly when fingers cards through her hair, making sure it wasn’t tangled beneath her before nails scratches gently against her scalp, a soft noise escaping her as she relaxed further against the older woman, the morning a distant memory as she closes her eyes and soaks in the attention.

She shifts with a sigh, rolling to press into Esme’s belly, nose flaring as she inhaled with a soft content noise and there’s a low purring from the woman’s chest in response that only lulls her deeper – tugging her down _down_ to such a relaxed state that there isn’t a bone of protest left in her body.

The movie becomes a comfortable background noise and she’s just at the edge of sleep when her legs are lifted up and settled into a lap – eyes flickering open to note the familiar blond hair of Carlisle before closing shut, strangely aware of the way his hand comes to rest on her ankle as they converse softly between them, their voices nearly a hum against her dozing senses.

-

“Renée, my mother – she got remarried,” Bella hears herself saying, staring down at the creature slowly coming to life in front of her. “That’s why I came to Forks,” she adds a bit belatedly, staring down at the little perky ears of the doe.

Esme turns sharp golden eyes towards her but Bella hardly notices, mouth curling down as she gently brushes her thumb up over the clearly outlined snout, all four hooves poking down – one just a tad shorter than the other three.

It’s past dinner which had consisted of a vegetable lasagne with bits of feta cheese and spinach which she’d chewed down carefully under the dual attention of the other two. It had been – _pleasant_ in a way that Bella seldom experienced.

With Renée dinner had always been an unsure thing and food wasn’t something Bella had associated with something positive, more akin to a chore of necessity.

Charlie was easier but it was pre-made dinners in front of the television, often with a game running and very little conversation.

But Carlisle and Esme asks questions and they listen to her with genuine attention as Bella stumbles her way awkwardly through fumbled answers about hobbies and favourite subjects, places she’d like to visit and curious inquiries about the books she enjoyed when they finally stumbled upon the subject of literal classics.

The entire thing is, frankly, bizarre and she’s both flustered and pleased and a bit shy in the face of it but there’s a twisted sort of craving and want tangled with something Bella hesitates to place.

The words had escaped her without real thought but Bella finds that she doesn’t regret them despite the way her heart twists up inside of her.

“Did you not like him?” Esme inquiries carefully.

Bella frowns down at the doe, irrationally annoyed at the too-short hoof and finally putting it aside and dragging her hand through her hair with a huff, eyes drifting momentarily towards the box Esme had pulled down earlier – the doe resting in a little bed of blue with a shining new tool wrap in leather leaning up beside it.

Her full name slants on the side of it in purple stylish writing; _Isabella._

“No, I like Phil well enough,” Bella says after a long moment. “He- tried more than the others and he-” She pauses, frown deepening, heart twisting up inside her chest. “It was a quick romance,” she says finally. “I met him during the last months but I didn’t – I didn’t think much about it, you know?”

She looks up, meeting Esme’s golden gaze across the room, noting the way the woman has abandoned her project – hands wiped clean and resting in her lap, curled together as if to prevent herself from reaching out, and Bella is thankful even as her heart aches because she doesn’t think she’d be able to get it out if she was wrapped up and _safe_.

“It’s – it’s _stupid_.” Her mouth twists. “She’s done far worse things and- it’s always been me taking care of _her_ and I know – I know she isn’t the best mother but they got _married_.” The words tangles in her mouth, bitter and painful for all that she feels foolish as she lifts her hand up over her mouth, trailing off into silence, her gaze focused on a spot of flat wooden flooring near her feet. “And she _forgot_. About _me_.”

It feels silly after all the years of tired bitterness between them – Renée’s moods swinging up and down like a pendulum and Bella constantly underfoot and the victim of her indulgences that wouldn’t be hindered by the child she’d birthed.

One of Bella’s earliest memories is of her nudging her mother awake where she’d draped herself on their rickety couch after a night of drinking.

She’s dressed and ready to go with a hat crammed on her head to protect against the sun and a little plastic bag of cereal and apple slices in the pocket of her jacket for lunchtime.

She’s even taken the time to push up on her tippy-toes to poke two pieces of bread into the toaster and smear them with the last of the jam, balanced carefully on a plate she’d scrubbed clean from the pile of dirty dishes in the sink to be placed on the small table in front of the box-like television.

 _“Mom,”_ Bella had said carefully, nudging at the woman with her elbow. _“Mom, you need to wake up.”_

She’s five.

There’s blueberry jam smeared on her thumb and she draws back, lurking a bit unsurely as the woman on the couch startles awake, bleary-eyed and exhausted as she patted automatically for the alarm that should have been at her side-table but instead puts her hand in the middle of the carefully made toasts as Bella flinches back in alarm, mouth turning down as she stares at the other with wide doe like eyes.

 _“How is it,”_ her mother wonders as she slowly lifts her hand with a wet noise and a grimace, exhausting clinging thickly to her, _“that you always manages to make everything worse?”_

“Phil is the one who told me,” Bella says after a long moment. “He had a dress with him – a bit too big, clearly bought in a hurry. He was – genuinely sorry. I think- I think that’s why I went in the end but… I didn’t stay long and when I asked Phil for the money for a plane ticket a week later he gave it to me without question.”

_I love your mother, Isabella, but what she did to you – that isn’t right. You know that, don’t you?_

And Bella had known for a long time but admitting to it- it _hurt_. Because Renée had been her world but Bella had never been a part of hers and the realisation and coming to terms with it – in clawed and gnawed and bit and stung and Bella _hated it._

Hated the thought of summers with Charlie given up because she’d been terrified of leaving Renée alone – too familiar with the volatile moods that bled money.

Hated the way she’d been afraid to make friends, afraid of drawing any sort of attention to herself- to _them._

She had clung to her mother, had made sure they had food in the fridge and a house over their heads. She’d paid the bills – scrambling coins and money together, selling things to strangers on the internet when her mother tired of one thing and started up another, living on the bare minimum with a rumbling stomach to make sure her mother had enough to get out the door and bring home money from work.

She’d been taunted and bullied at school for her little bags of cereal and yam and pieces of fruit because it was the only thing Renée brought home reliably for free from her work place.

“It’s _stupid,_ ” Bella repeats, heart wrenching inside her chest. _“But it hurts._ ”

“Of course it hurts,” Esme says as she sinks to her knees in front of her and Bella hadn’t even seen her get up, swallowing thickly as the beautiful woman with the caramel hair and curious amber eyes gently reaches out to cradle her head between her palms, a thumb brushing gently beneath her eye to catch at a tear she hadn’t even noticed falling. “ _Of course it does._ You were supposed to be her world but instead you ended up with something broken and you were forgotten by the one person who were always supposed to remember you.”

Bella stares helplessly at Esme as the woman’s eyes darkens, something possessive worming through them as she leans forward to press her forehead against Bella’s.

“She didn’t deserve you,” Esme promises her and the words echoes inside her mind, slotting in place with a firm sort of conviction that Bella can’t find the words to deny. “A mother’s treasure is her child, little one,” Esme says with grief that flashes momentarily through her eyes and twists something inside of Bella in response. “Believe me,” she says, softer. “She didn’t deserve you. Not for a moment.”

Silence settles between them, Bella’s mind strangely tangled up and silent as she stares into the other’s eyes, seeing the softness and something she doesn’t dare to place before Esme shifts and presses her lips first to Bella’s right eyelid and then her left before sighing and drawing her up and into her lap, Bella’s knees dipping down on either side of her hips, a hand settling warm and firm against the back of her neck to press her close.

Esme’s scent tickles at her nose as she breathes in and Bella noses closer, relaxing against the older woman, the memory from that morning tickling against her mind to add a soft brush of colour to her cheeks as she hesitantly wraps her arms around the other, fingers curling and tangling at the back of Esme's cardigan.

-

“How are you doing?” Carlisle asks when Esme nudges Bella down on the couch later that evening before settling down beside her, leaving her in the middle of the two – a strange warmth filling her up for all that their chilly skin sends a shiver of goosebumps up her arms. “You alright?” he asks with a little dip in his brow, shifting to draw a blanket from the side of the couch and draping it out over their laps.

“Just a lot on my mind,” Bella admits, clearing her throat and drawing the fleece blanket just a bit closer, unsure how to relax when she was so acutely aware of them both.

“Do you want to watch a movie?” Carlisle asks, reaching out and tucking some hair beneath her ear. “Or would you prefer listening to something? Edward has quite the extensive collection of music.”

A thought crosses her mind and she ducks her head, the tips of her ears colouring red and her gaze darts to Esme- finding only encouragement in her gaze with some curiosity as one eyebrow rises up.

“Do you – you don’t have to,” Bella hurries to reassure as she gives him a hesitant look. “But- you have a lot of books and I’d love to- I mean if you don’t mind-“

“I’d love to,” Carlisle says with a warm sort of smile and Bella’s cheeks grows darker at the genuine delight in his eyes. “Do you have any preferences?” he asks as he rises, smooth and elegant as he crosses the room to the bookcases to brush the tips of his fingers over the spines, her gaze following him.

“I love the classics,” Bella admits just a tad shyly. 

“Ah,” Carlisle says with a hum of approval. “We could go for the tale of Jane Eyre, then. Or perhaps revisit the world of Elizabeth Bennet.”

Esme glances down at Bella, her mouth twitching up at the way the young human had perked up. “I think we’d both like Pride and Prejudice,” she tells her husband and Carlisle curls two fingers over the edge and pulls it down from the shelf, smoothing a hand gently over the old cover.

It had been a gift to her many years earlie, a story they had both enjoyed over and over, and it felt right to read it here now with their little one and Esme can’t resist curling her arm around slim shoulders, pulling the human close to place a kiss against the crown of her head, feeling the way muscles bunches and then relaxes, her scent flaring knowingly in the tell of a soft blush.

She still smells of her climax – the scent clinging heavily to her index and middle finger in particular and Esme can recall the beautiful muffled whimpers with crisp clarity, having drank every inhalation, every shift and groan and desperate noise as their baby girl got herself off on their couch, unaware of the way they could hear _everything_.

The low sucking afterwards a promise of something that made her heart quiver.

“Why don’t you sit in the middle?” Esme suggests to glance from Bella who then flicks her eyes up, something unsure in her gaze as she slowly shifts to make room for Carlisle, pulling the blanket with her and throwing it back over once he was situated.

It hits Esme then – looking at the way Bella curls a bit stiff and awkward beside Carlisle, as if she doesn't know what to do with her body in response to the book being opened beside her despite a shoulder waiting invitingly.

“I don’t think she’s been read to before,” Esme says, too fast and too quiet for human hearing.

“No,” Carlisle agrees, thumbing past the title and to the first chapter with a gentle hand. “But she has us now and I’ll read her as many stories as she want.” There’s a low sort of protectiveness in his voice that makes her fondness and love surge and she cranes her head to place a kiss on his cheek before demonstratively curling close to him – leaning her head against his shoulder and tugging a bit at the blanket to make sure it was covering all three of them securely.

Bella glances towards her, then Carlisle, and slowly – as he begins to read – she inches closer, drawn to his smooth voice and the story in the low light from the dimmed lamps.

It’s a treasure to see the way she places a head on his shoulder and – when he does no move to protest it – relaxes against him, knees drawing up to rest against his thigh as she curls just a big closer, hand grasping absently at the blanket, drawing it up and into a sort of substitute for something soft and Esme’s aching heart wonders if she’s ever had a plush toy to call her own.

There’s a lot of things that has gone wrong in regards to Isabella Swan but the girl is theirs now and they have an eternity to make up for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am back!! I am so happy to have time to write again - I woke up an hour ago and now I'm just here serving up some Twilight sweetness. 
> 
> I'm actually unsure if I'll stick to five chapters - it's leaning towards an extra chapter on that because I don't think I can cram all of it into the next one? It's either that or you're getting a long chapter, just as a heads-up! It's a short fic but I didn't want to rush them either and I'm trying to find a compromise somewhere in between that so we shall see.
> 
> Thank you so much for your comments!<3 I am ever so blessed by your support. About to head back and respond once I've got this baby up and running (in another hour or so as I'm writing this - I try to do a quick read through before upload and I gotta find myself a cup of coffee).
> 
> I'm artsy-death on tumblr if you want to swing by there, comment field is open for whatever thoughts strike your mind and this has been chapter 4 of Don't Be Blue.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed!


	5. Baby Girl

Alice and her siblings return to school as normal come Monday and Bella only tilts her head in brief in surprise when the pixie-like girl slides into the seat across her at the normally empty table, practically buzzing with excitement.

“We have to do it again,” Alice says and there’s something in her eyes that makes Bella pause and consider her, humming as she takes an absent bite of the sandwich in front of her.

There’s something about Alice that makes her want to reach out and link their arms together – a childish urge to tangle together with someone her own age, a craving to experience all those little things that had always been out of her reach as she watched the other children play while she curled up in a corner with a book.

She’d always wanted a sleepover – had pinned her ears to listen when the other girls whispered about it - and Alice had gone out of her way to make if perfect, a bit anxious and over the top with her excitement but clearly wanting something in a way that echoes familiar inside her own chest.

Friendship – Bella finds that she wants to try it.

Is tired of being afraid of it.

“Maybe we can make it a full day?” she suggests. “I hear there’s a mall in Port Angeles – we could go there during the day and then have the movie marathon during the evening?”

Alice’s eyes practically glitters. “I’d like that,” she says breathily and there’s something in the way Alice’s lips curl warm that cements the decision inside of her as she smiles back with a brush of red across her cheeks.

-

Carlisle and Esme greets her just as warmly and welcoming with every visit and Bella finds that she doesn’t mind Alice’s excuses and strange disappearances come Saturday morning when it means she gets to wake up in their bed, warm and utterly content.

The doe gets finished and it takes a proud stance in the living room bookcase, easily visibly from the couch, and Bella glances at it frequently during her stays with a tug at her heart that is hard to explain.

She takes to reading in their company – curled up against the side of Esme’s chair as she works or all tucked up in the large plush armchair in Carlisle’s office when he is working his way through piles of paper from the hospital.

On days without rain they garden together, Bella with her very own pair of gloves bought and gifted to her after she’d pricked her thumb on a rose. They’re blue with a protective layer of white leather and Bella finds that she likes the way Esme fuzzily help her into them before wrapping a scarf around her neck as a finishing touch and a kiss to the tip of her nose.

There are days when they play games or just relax on the couch – watching a movie or reading out loud from a book chosen together, Bella occasionally napping against one of them when the weeks had been busy while the other prepared food in the kitchen.

-

It’s hard not to pick up on the strangeness of the Cullen’s the more and more time she spends with them.

Like the shifting colour of their eyes, the constant coolness of their skin and the unnatural stillness of them.

Or how Alice and Esme both could sweep her right off her feet with an ease that shouldn’t be possible and without even a hint of a stumble.

The most damning thing is the way her ear angles to listen to a heartbeat that just isn’t there.

-

”Off to the Cullen’s again?” Charlie’s voice makes her pause, turning around to look at her father.

He’s sitting at the couch, the television muted with the screen casting a flickering light across his face. Behind him is the mantelpiece decorated with old pictures of her – things Renée had never bothered with.

She sometimes finds herself wondering how different things would have been had she grown up here with him in Forks instead of Phoenix with a mother who couldn’t spare two minutes out of her busy schedule to ask if her only daughter was alright after turning up with her nose broken, blood dripping down her chin and blotching one of the only good shirts she owned.

 _“Don’t stain the couch!”_ she’d said, already half-way out the door. _“And don’t wait up for me!”_

“Yeah,” Bella responds after a moment, unsure how to place the look in his eyes. “Alice and I were planning on watching a movie together.”

“Don’t you think you’ve been spending a bit too much time there?” he asks, a frown now visible on his face. “You haven’t spent a single weekend home since that first sleepover of yours.”

Bella’s brow dip, hand curling a bit unsurely around the wooden door panel.

“You remember Billy’s son, Jake? The one who fixed your car? Why don’t you spend the day with him? Go to the movies or something.”

Bella stares at him, teeth digging into her lower lip. “I already promised Alice,” she says finally.

“I’m sure she’ll understand you wanting some time off from them,” Charlie presses. “Jake is already on his way here- you wouldn’t want to disappoint him, do you?”

Bella’s grasp tightens on the wood. “I already promised Alice,” she repeats. “And it’s my decision to make.”

“As your father-“

“Charlie,” Bella interrupts, a sudden feeling of tiredness nearly overwhelming her and she hates the way pain flashes through his eyes at the frank use of his name. “I am almost eighteen years old. You can’t just go making decisions about my life. Who I hang out with is no-ones business but my own.”

They stare at each other – family and yet in so many ways just strangers living together.

“I am only concerned,” he says, lower now.

“I know,” she says, voice heavy.

Silence creeps between them, tense and for once uncomfortable.

“We… didn’t do right by you, did we?” Charlie´s eyes are brown, just a shade lighter than her own, and there’s regret there – heavy in his gaze. “I didn’t know how to bring it up but… you clearly weren’t doing as well as I hoped with Renée.”

“No,” Bella says quietly. “I wasn’t doing well at all.”

Charlie’s eyes searches hers as she stares back at him, backpack heavy where it dangled off her shoulder with her sleepwear and necessities – unpacked only to be washed since her last visit to the Cullen’s house.

“They make you happy.”

“Yes,” Bella agrees.

“Do you-“ But Charlie cuts himself off, clearing his throat and reaching for the remote to the television. “Have fun,” he says. “Tell Alice I said hello.”

There’s something strangely final in the motion and Bella stares at him, the volume turned back on to low cheers and she swallows as she grasps at the strap to her bag and threads her way to the front door, glancing back to find the living room dark, the television casting it’s light upon Charlie as he bends forward to grasp the beer from the table in front of him, a lone half-eaten pizza open beside it.

Bella opens her mouth. Closes it.

The door clicks quietly shut behind her when she leaves.

-

Bella throws her arms around Esme when the older woman opens the door, her hands tangling in the back of the knitted sweater the other was wearing to a warm laugh and her feet leaving the ground with a small squeak when Esme swept her up and swung her around.

“Someone’s happy to see me,” Esme says with light glittering eyes as she draws back, just enough to study her face as Bella remains close to her – not quite willing to give up the comfort of the other just yet. “Is everything okay?” she asks, concern dipping her brow.

“It’s fine,” Bella says, torn by the strange urge to nuzzle close and instead pushing forward to place a quick kiss on the other’s cheek in a moment of split-decision before ducking out of her arms, missing the surprise that made Esme go eerily still. “Carlisle home?” she asks, trotting inside after pushing down on the back of her shoes and nudging them in place by the others.

“He’s picking up some last minute things,” Esme says, shifting back into movement and stealing the backpack dangling half-way off Bella’s shoulder and placing it aside as the other halted at the sight of the table piled up with candy – a fond, if wry, smile tipping her lips.

“I see Alice had a field-day,” she comments and Esme watches carefully as her little one hovers over the candy and knick-knacks, hesitating for a moment before reaching for the soft plush with a curious hand and lifting it up to let it dangle from one ear.

It is a tufty thing in baby blue with drooping ears and sad eyes peering up a bit unsurely.

Esme had fashioned it a little bow at the neck in flowery fabric carefully chosen from the store – cotton white with bluebells in soft muted colours.

Watching Bella now – the way her gaze lingers, _softening_ , Esme knew she’d made the right decision in buying it.

“What is this?” Bella asks, quite unable to tear her eyes away.

“I think,” Esme says. “That the question ought to be _whom_ is this?”

Bella’s shoots her a bit of an unsure look and Esme’s heart softens as she steps forward, hand settling gently on a slim shoulder as she peered down at the small plush animal.

“Hmm,” she says, tapping her knuckle thoughtfully against her lip. “Not quite a Dumbo, the colour isn’t right. And I can’t think of an elephant that’s blue in any recent movies.”

“Horton was,” Bella voices hesitantly. “In the books I mean. In some of the version he was just white but then blue in others.”

Esme gives her little one a studious look. “But they doesn’t look like a Horton, do they?”

“No,” Bella agrees, softer, drawing the plush closer and letting its rump come to rest in the palm of her left hand, the other tugging at the little bow with the bluebells. “But maybe – maybe it doesn’t have to be named after another elephant at all.”

“And?” Esme urges in a low cadence, shifting behind her, one arm slipping down to rest against the flat of Bella’s belly as the younger automatically leaned back, shifting to seek the reassurance Esme offered. "What do you have in mind?” she asks, drawing her little one just a bit tighter to herself.

“Lizzy,” Bella voices. “After-"

“Elizabeth Bennet,” Esme echoes with her and Bella draws the elephant just a little bit closer.

“Yeah,” she agrees and Esme presses a soft kiss to her cheek, her lips curled into a soft smile.

"I think it's a wonderful name," she says.

-

“I had an argument with Charlie today,” Bella confides to Alice that evening.

Alice is sprawled out on her bed with a fashion magazine flipped up in front of her, working Bella through one of the tests (10 Questions to Find out If Your Husband Is Cheating on You).

Her voice halts Alice just as she’s about to voice question 7, the pixie girl pausing with the pen raised, gaze lifting to focus fully on her.

“At least I think that’s what it was,” she says, brow furrowing as her mouth dipped a bit unsurely. “He was upset about me spending so much time with you and I told him- I told him it was none of his business whom I spend my time with and he just-“

But Bella can’t put words to it, the dismissal, so easily made, and the strange relief that mixed with guilt as he turned his gaze back to the game.

_They make you happy._

_Do you-_

“Bella?” She startles, glancing up to find Alice hovering at the edge of the bed, magazine put aside and looking rather like a petite gargoyle. “Are you alright? You drifted away there for a second.”

“I’m – I think I’m a bit confused,” she admits, glancing towards the sad-looking blue elephant that had somehow found itself into her possession, now propped up beside her. “I’ve never been close to Charlie. We don’t talk on the phone and it’s been _years_ since I last visited Forks but it’s still- _he’s_ still-“ Bella shuts her mouth, swallowing. “I should be happy that he didn’t – that he didn’t press it or anything but a part of me-“

“A part of you wanted him to,” Alice finishes softly.

Bella nods, fingers twisting together in the large shirt she’d received years ago from one of the few good guys Renée had allowed home.

She’d kept it because it was soft and one of the first gifts she had ever received and it brings her a strange sort of comfort after so many years.

The fabric had, somehow, only gotten softer during the time she’d had it and while it was impossible to make out the band logo Bella found that she didn’t much care.

“I spent years taking care of Renée,” Bella tells her. “And then I came here and I just – I don’t know what I expected but then I met _you_ and Esme and Carlisle and you’re – you’re all more of a family to me than my own parents ever were and I’ve only been in Forks for-“

The sting of her eyes makes her quiet, hand rising to cover her mouth, a deep aching pit yawning wide inside of her.

“They are my parents,” Bella whispers. “But they couldn’t even muster up to _fight for me_.”

And that’s the crux of it in the end, isn’t it? Bella had dedicated her life to a mother who didn’t care and then a father who had made a fumbling attempt but, ultimately, there had never been an effort to do more than the bare minimum and Bella knows- Bella _knows_ that there is more to that in being a parent.

Because Carlisle and Esme had proven it to her over and over again – had made her feel appreciated and loved over and over and it _hurt_ because the more time she spends with the Cullen’s the more she understanfs that what had been done to her wasn’t _right_ and it came with the realisation that her parents-

_That her parents-_

And it didn’t help that her feelings for Esme and Carlisle was so mixed up with a desire that wasn’t right either because Bella couldn’t do right by _anything_ and she hates it because they had been nothing but good to her and-

And.

“’m sorry,” Bella hiccups as Carlisle slides his arms beneath her armpits and hauls her up from the floor, drawing her close to his chest as her hands tangles desperately in his clothes.

One arm settles low beneath her rump in support as she finds herself carried out of Alice’s room and down the corridor, a low rumbling purr echoing through the body she was pressed up against.

The bedroom is cast in low light from the lamps – curtains pulled open to reveal the dark cast of the trees and the reaching light from the stars and the moon peering down upon them.

Bella gets but a peak at it before Carlisle is sinking down on the edge of the bed, her legs spreading out on either side of his hips and leaving her pressed flush against him as he draws her close, nuzzling gently against her as she clung to him with trembles running through her body.

“I’ve got you,” he rumbles, one hand slipping to rest against the back of her neck – firm and reassuring as she breathes in his scent, fingers tangling in his shirt to reassure herself that he was really there – cool and without a beating heart but _there_ in the only way that mattered.

“Whatever has you so upset cannot be worth your tears, little one,” Carlisle murmurs gently against her hair. “You know you can talk to us about anything, don’t you?”

Bella’s grip tightens, embarrassment mixing with humiliation and a deep twisted sort of self-loathing that makes her shake her head against his chest.

The click of the door closing makes Bella still and she knows without turning the owner of the sweet scent brushing up against her nose- mixing with Carlisle’s more burnt smell, a duality of comfort that deepens when the bed dips and Esme leans her head against Carlisle on the other side of his chest, her amber eyes meeting Bella’s brown when she reluctantly peers out at her.

“Alice told me what you said,” Esme says gently. “There’s nothing wrong about wanting more in life – Carlisle and I are both guilty of it.” A soft curl of her lips. “We looked at you and wanted you for ourselves, didn’t we?” she says and Bella’s heart swells even as a tear slips down her cheek, caught and gently brushes aside by a cold thumb. “What is it that gnaws at you, baby girl?” Esme wonders, eyes searching and so filled with concern that it only makes Bella feel all the worse.

For even now she can’t help but be aware of the way she’s spread out on Carlisle, legs open wide, and she can’t rid of the memory of waking up pressed up against Esme’s pale breast with her nipple in her mouth – panties wet and a hazy sort of contentedness she hadn’t experienced since.

How can she put into words that she wants nothing more than to call them _Mom_ and _Dad_ when she was swept up into their arms and fussed about only to switch it to a whisper of begging for _Mommy_ and _Daddy_ to make her feel good in their bed?

Even thinking about it makes a red flush creep over her face as she turns her head, pressing closer to Carlisle who brushes his thumb against the skin on her neck where he’s still holding her – firm and secure even as his nose flares above her, both of their golden eyes darkening with hunger.

There’s a shift and Bella tenses as the bed rustles and she finds herself traded from one pair of arms to another, flushing even darker as her legs spread over Esme’s hips and her upper body was drawn down flat, painfully aware of her own lack of bra as her nipples hardened in response to Esme’s coldness.

Bella shifts – trying to discreetly put some space between them – only to tense when cool fingers brushes teasingly against her side where her shirt had ridden up, nails scraping gently to the hem of her shorts where two fingers dipped inside, giving the elastics a playful little tug.

Something inside of her stills – disbelief and hope twisting sharply through her.

“I think I know what you want,” Esme says and Bella shivers at the dip in her voice, at the dark possessive _want_. “But I need you to tell me, baby girl. I need to know this is something you want."

Esme noses against her neck, a puff of cold against her ear making her squirm as her heart pounds loud inside her chest, doubly aware of the way Esme’s chest remained silent beneath her ear – something not quite human in her cool limbs and superior strength and then those curious amber eyes which had drawn her in from that first meeting in the store.

Bella swallows because whatever the Cullen’s are she finds that she doesn’t care – not if it means she gets to keep them for herself (and be kept).

“I-“ The word feels heavy, thick on her tongue, and she knows instinctively that there’s no going back after this, a thrum of anxious anticipation twisting through her as she pushes up, back curling, just enough to put her face to face with Esme’s eyes so dark they are nearly black. “I want-“

“ _Who_ do you want, baby girl?” Esme presses and Bella knows she’s not misreading the want in her eyes, the body beneath her eerily still, waiting.

Like a predator watching its prey, only more intense and with an entirely different sort of hunger.

“I want _Mommy_ ,” Bella whispers and red spreads across her cheeks, a tremble running through her. “And _Daddy-_ “ She nearly stumbles over the word, aware of the way Carlisle is watching beside them, her hand curling into Esme’s shirt. “I want-“ But the words won’t form and she feels bare and vulnerable, embarrassed but also so painfully hopeful even as anxiousness makes her stare down on Esme’s chin, afraid to meet her eyes.

A hand settles on the side of her cheek and Bella finds herself tugged down, a sharp breath leaving her as cool lips presses against her own with a sigh of something almost like relief that sends a wisp of cold against her when Esme draws back.

“Good girl,” she praises and Bella’s pussy clenches, a whimper swallowed when a thumb brushes gently over her cheek. “ _Our_ good girl,” she says, pressing her lips against Bella’s cheek and then her nose before slanting over her mouth possessively.

Bella inhales sharply, a low noise escaping her even as she opens her mouth, granting Esme entrance with the first brush of coldness demanding entrance, a clever tongue coaxing hers into response with a low rumbling growl through the chest beneath her.

Behind her Carlisle nudges at her to rise up on her knees as Esme detaches herself from her lips and aims lower, nipping at the sensitive skin on her neck while a broad palm strokes down and between her legs against the fabric of her shorts and underwear to a jerk and a low noise from Bella as Esme sucks down hard on her neck, bruising and marking her skin and then soothing with a broad swipe of her tongue.

“I know what your Mommy wants, little one,” Carlisle rumbles even as they help her out of shirt, baring her small breasts and the flush of red which had crept down her chest. “And I think you want it to. I think you haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since waking up in our bed attached to her chest.” He leans over her, placing a kiss in the middle of her shoulder blades as a tremble runs through her.

Bella’s eyes darts up to Esme’s but there’s no disgust in her eyes – only encouragement and something frail that has Bella swallowing as she stares down at the buttons of the cardigan hiding the swell of her Mommy’s chest, fingers slowly reaching to undo them as Carlisle’s palm slid from between her legs to settle almost possessively over the flat stretch of her belly.

There’s a thrum of undeniable anticipation in the air as she gets the cardigan open and then the blouse to bare the pale breast of the woman beneath her, mouth going dry as she ducked low, Esme’s hand settling against the back of her head, tangling in the dark strands there as she urges Bella’s mouth towards the hard nipple – mouth parting as her nose presses up against the softness of her breast, the first suck bringing a low muffled whine from the depth of her chest.

The feeling of rightness soothes all anxiety of the situation away – the soft adoration in Esme’s eyes heady - and behind her Carlisle rumbles with contentedness at the sight, his hand settling on Bella’s hip as he presses his growing bulge against her rump, grinding himself against her as she spread her legs with a little hitch of her breath.

“I think our little one is wearing too much clothes, Carlisle.”

“Mm,” he agrees, fingers curling around the hem of her shorts and down to snag at her underwear. “I think you’re correct dear wife of mine.”

Bella flushes when he pulls them down, helping her out of it one foot at the time and discarding it aside – leaving her completely nude between the two who were both still fully clothed – her mouth firmly attached to Esme, nursing the nub in her mouth with a strange hazy craving, the hand at the back of her head keeping her pressed there so very comforting.

 _Mommy wants you here,_ her mind nearly sighs and Bella whines low in her throat, hand curling to grasp in the fabric of Esme’s cardigan.

Carlisle’s seizes her hips with both his hands and Bella jerks with a startled little noise when he grinds himself forward and against her – allowing her to feel the swell of his bulge with a possessive growl when the growing wetness of her pussy smeared against the front of his jeans, staining them with her scent in a way that would linger for weeks.

“You smell so good,” he tells her, tongue flattening to drag against her spine all the way up to her shoulder blades. “I want to taste you, baby girl. Do you want Daddy to make you feel good?”

A needy whine is his response, her legs parting in invitation, and he gives her rump a little nip before grasping at her cheeks and pulling them apart as he swept low – tongue flattening all the way from her clit and over her folds to stroke broadly over the puckered back entrance to a startled little flutter.

He repeats it, Bella’s hand tensing a bit unsurely in Esme’s cardigan, but Mommy is calm and there and Bella slowly relaxes, tension building low in her gut as he kept lapping at her in wide firm strokes, tongue parting her folds to dip teasingly against her entrance, the coolness contrasting against her own warmth in a way that made her squirm.

“You taste so good, little one,” Carlisle groans before he twists his head below her legs and sucks hard on her clit to a sharp jerk up to escape the intensity of it only to find her pulled down against him as he settles on his back, one arm looping around her to pull her down against him as Esme spreads her legs out to make room for him, forcing Bella’s own out wider with them.

She makes an attempt to get away but there’s no escaping Esme’s grasp or Carlisle’s firm hold and she claws against Esme’s cardigan with straining muscles, mouth pushed down firm against her breast, toes digging into the bed as Carlisle forced the coiling tension in her gut into an explosive orgasm only to wiggle his tongue up and into her to taste the wetness there as she whines in protest, Esme purring low to soothe even as she jerks with every stroke inside of her, knuckles white and straining and gasping against the nipple in her mouth, groaning with low vibration against it when Carlisle finally pulls back.

“You’re doing so good,” Esme reassures her before Carlisle presses down flat against her and steals his wife into a firm and heady kiss.

Bella circles her tongue around Esme’s nipple before sucking down on it, ears pinned to listen when there was a rattle of a drawer being opened before Carlisle drew back, hand running down the bareness of her flank and rump.

He grasps at her cheeks, spreading them open with a firm sort of intention.

“Daddy?“ Bella voices unsurely as she detaches herself from Esme’s breast.

“Do you trust us, baby girl?” Esme asks in a low soothing cadence and Bella swallows, hearing the noise of a cork being pulled and tensing as oil dripped down over Carlisle’s fingers and between the spread of her cheeks, shoulders coiling tense when his fingers dipped to press against her puckered back entrance. “We’ll make you feel good,” she whispers. “ _Mommy_ promises.”

Bella turns her head, seeking reassurance as she pushes at the fabric and latches onto Esme’s other breast just as Carlisle presses his first finger into her – forcing her to spread open far faster than she had anticipated as she inhales sharply, feeling the stark coolness of him as he disappeared into her to a low groan behind her as he watches the way she takes him.

A single finger soon becomes two, the sting quickly giving away to a low pressure of _something_ as he pulls out only to press in again, watching her entrance stretch over his knuckles before settling tight all the way down to the beginning of his palm with a heady feeling of possessive want.

He pulls his fingers out of her and snaps the button of his jeans open and pulls the zipper down, pushing them down just enough to free his straining cock to a groan of relief, hand wrapping firmly around himself with a shudder as he anticipated the feeling of warmth swallowing him up.

He presses forward and up against her, letting his cock slide over the wetness of her warm cunt to settle against her belly.

Bella freezes in place at the feeling of his cock cold and hard, both girthy and long in a way that made ill-ease curl low inside of her.

“Daddy-“

“Daddy will make you feel good,” Carlisle promises, voice thick with want as he draws back and presses the flat head of his cock up against her – swallowing a groan at the sight of her entrance slowly spreading open for him as he pushes forward, giving her no choice but to open up and accept him inside as she spreads wide to a shocked noise of pain beneath him.

“You’re doing so good,” he promises her as she struggles not to tense down as her tight ring of muscles slides to settle below the head of his cock. “So good,” he rumbles as he strokes a hand down her flank as he feeds her inch after straining inch before he grasps at her cheeks to spread them open further as he gives a push forward, hips pushing up against herwith a slap of his balls and he let out a shuddering breath.

The picture is nothing short of obscene – the tight pink ring of muscles straining around his wide cock as he holds himself there, drinking in the warmth of her as he bent forward to press a kiss against her spine.

Bella remains tense beneath him, mouth nudged up and snagged into a kiss as she whimpers at the feeling of being stretched so fully, overwhelmed but allowing herself to be distracted by Esme’s clever tongue as Carlisle slowly drew out of her until only the head of his cock remained inside and Bella slowly relaxes as he pushes gently inside before repeating it, giving her a chance to get used to it as she whines into Esme’s mouth to a little laugh and a press of lips against her nose as she shifts her hips.

“I think our baby girl wants more,” Esme purrs and Carlisle makes a low noise in return while Bella’s eyes flare wide, words registering just as he pulls nearly all the way out.

Carlisle snaps his hips forward, burying deep inside of her with a loud smack against her rump, jerking her forward with a sharp shocked noise.

“Carli-“ But the word becomes a gasp when he repeats it with an inhuman sort of control and force as he fucks into her ass, leaving her little choice but to hang on, struggling not to clench down as his cock drags raw against her walls as she clings to Esme, the rhythmic smacking of her flesh loud.

He gives her knee a tug back and Bella squeaks at the ease of it, his cock sinking deep and down as he presses a palm down on her back, forcing her nearly flat against Esme as he takes her with growing brutality – her face twisting up, overwhelmed as she sinks her teeth into Esme’s shoulder and does a vain attempt at curling her hips up as her clit presses uncomfortably down against the front of Esme’s jeans but unable to, pain and edging pleasure twisting up inside of her.

 _“Mommy-“_ Bella nearly sobs and Esme purrs soothingly, hand brushing over her hair while doing nothing to relinquish her grasp on her and Bella comes with a sharp jerk, fingers curling like claws into Esme’s cardigan as her walls clenches down, the ring of muscles tightening painfully around Carlisle who growls and snaps forward, grinding himself into her before pulling out with a wet _pop_ and a sharp jerk of her hips.

Bella trembles against Esme, wild-eyed and overwhelmed as Carlisle draws her up and into his lap, her arms curling around his shoulders, knees sinking down on either side of his hips and his cock pressing flat against his stomach between them, still painfully hard where it jutted up proudly, pale with a sheen of purple.

“You did so good,” he breathes against her ear as he nuzzles against her. “You took me so beautifully, baby girl. I am so proud of you.”

He gives her jaw a little nip, words quite beyond her as her heart struggles to calm itself.

“Is this your first time?” he rumbles, dark and intent as his mouth seals against her neck, sucking a mark next to the one made by his wife.

“Yes-“ Bella gasps, her lungs heavy with the duality of their scents, a sweetness that fills her up with every inhalation.

 _“Good,”_ he growls as the bed shifts and Bella barely has time to prepare herself before something broad pressed up against her still fluttering ring of muscles, forcing them to spread out and make room as Carlisle grasps at her hips, giving her no choice but to remain still as her arms tightened around him, a flush of red giving away to pale shock as Esme slid all the way inside of her, the spread of the dildo leaving her quivering as it settles deep inside of her.

Bella opens her mouth but all that leaves her is a whine and she knows what’s going to happen long before Carlisle dips his hand down to grasp his still hard cock, her hips urged up, toy pushing hard inside of her as the broad head pressed flat against her vaginal entrance.

 _“Ours,”_ Esme promises her with a whisper of her breath against Bella’s ear and then she was being pressed down and Bella’s mind blanks – a roar in her ears as Carlisle cock spread her wide, entrance opening up to swallow the head of his cock inside of her before inch after aching inch followed, the coldness of his cock strange where it settled inside her quivering hot walls – a few inches still remaining when she came to a halt.

Bella quivers – her eyes focused blankly at the door behind Carlisle, spread so wide and so sudden that her body doesn’t know what to do with itself.

It _hurts_ and there’s a niggling reminder of something she can’t quite grasp at as she slowly shifts her head to stare blankly down where they joined.

“Carlisle-“ Esme breathes.

“I know,” he echoes, voice thick.

And then he was pulling out and slowly rocking back inside as Bella clung white-knuckled and shocked, whining to a soothing murmur against her ear as they drew out to push inside, the ridges of the toy dragging achingly against stinging muscles, everything too _much_ and Bella turns her head againdt Carlisle's chest, biting down on her lower lip until Esme reaches around and Bella trades it for cold fingers, sucking down willingly in an attempt to distract herself as they took her over and over again.

The feeling of being so full is hard not to linger on and she quivers when Esme sucks down on her neck, teeth scraping against her skin, a low rumbling growl as she snapped up and into Bella who whines, tipping her head back further to bare her throat, a hand tangling in her hair to yank it further down as Esme sealed her teeth against her windpipe, grinding up and into her as Carlisle’s eyes darkened at the sight.

His hands flattens over her belly and he grunts as he snaps forward, his other hand grasping at her hip and burying the last inches of his cock into her to a jerk as he seals the head of his cock flat against her cervix, at the entrance to her womb, his balls drawing up tight as sticky semen spilled into her with a rumble of a possessive growl.

Their baby girl quivers as Esme slowly eases off her throat, pupils so blown they nearly swallowed the entirety of the brown in her eyes as their gazes meet.

“I’m not on the pill,” she says faintly, disbelief and something Carlisle doesn’t dare to hope for as he leans forward, nuzzling against her chest, not quite able to resist giving a perky little nipple a nip to a little flinch.

“I know,” he murmurs, nose flaring at he drank her scent – free of any artificials.

Pills and condoms were a human worry – vampires didn’t carry diseases and they couldn’t impregnate or carry children.

But despite knowing this there’s something primal in the feel of his cum deep inside of her, squishing wetly as he pushes experimentally forward, his cock already half-hard inside her warmth.

Esme draws back, the toy popping out of Bella to a little twitch and Carlisle reluctantly does the same as his wife frees herself from the toy and pushes their human flat on her back, claiming her mouth as Carlisle can’t resist sliding between her legs, lifting her rump to rest against his thigh to keep any of the cum from slipping out as he turned to nibble absently on a pale knee.

“You’ve done so well,” Esme assures Bella as the human gives her an unsure and vulnerable look, clearly overwhelmed but wanting them anyway. “Why don’t you help Mommy now, hm?” she suggests, pulling her sticky underwear down her legs before she shifts to straddle her baby girl’s mouth, curling Bella’s hair up in her fist to make sure she didn’t accidentally catch any under her knees.

The first brush of a hesitant warm tongue against her folds makes her close her eyes, a shuddering sigh leaving her as she sank down more firmly, purring low in encouragement as Bella’s tongue dipped to taste, dragging around her labia and sucking down before her tongue presses up to dip inside cool walls with such a delicious contrasting warmth that Esme gasps, pulling at her hair to press her just a little bit closer as it wiggled up deep into her to drag against her walls.

Bella whimpers, hips curling up as Carlisle pushes back into her, her fingers grasping at Esme’s thighs as he spread her out wide, bottoming out with a hard push against her cervix.

It aches – her nerves overstimulated, walls squeezing down to keep him inside as he pulled out only to snap forward, fucking her with his cum squishing inside of her as she whimpered into Esme’s folds, toes curling as their skin smacked together.

There's a mantra of want inside her mind, an encompassing feeling of _belonging_ that's only enforced with every thrust of Carlisle's cock inside of her, the taste of Esme filling up her mouth with every curl of her tongue to taste more.

Carlisle pushes at the back of her thighs, opening her up further and forcing her back to curl as he presses down with force, growling as took her while Esme grinds down on her face, wetness smearing over her lips.

Esme comes with a grinding of her hips and more sweetness spilling over Bella’s tongue as Esme clenches down almost painfully around it as it wiggles to seek it out and draw the sticky want back into her mouth to a little laugh before Esme gave her hair a pull, detaching herself as Bella whimpers at the loss only to yelp at the force of Carlisle's next thrust.

“ _Mommy_ -“ she gasps and Esme kisses her, warm and possessive as Carlisle grunts and pushes himself flat against her a second time, hands grasping to draw her tight to him, holding her flush as sticky cum spilled into her with a growl, amber eyes glittering.

 _Not human,_ Bella’s mind remembers distantly, stomach clenching, aware of the bruises on her hips and throat, the unnatural coldness of the cum thick inside of her but unable to care as Esme brushes her lips to her cheek, her sweet scent nearly overwhelming with the taste of her cum on her tongue.

Carlisle stills with a little sigh as he presses a kiss to her belly before pulling out of her and possessiveness rears inside of Bella as she reaches for Esme and curls to press against the reclining woman, mouth attaching itself to one of her nipples to a little gasp and then a low purr as Esme pulls her closer, nuzzling against her.

The bed shifts when Carlisle leaves only to reappear with the small blue elephant which he relinquishes to the hand that reaches out to pull it close, curling it in the crook of her arm.

Bella isn’t surprised when just moments later Carlisle's nudges up against her with a dip of the bed and merely spreads her legs with a little whimper, ignoring the slight sting, her walls stretching wide as his cock sunk in to bottom out into her and he bent down to give her neck a small nip.

He takes her slow and gentle this time – rocking her softly up against Esme as she threads her fingers through Bella’s hair, humming contently as their human nurses against her chest.

“Sleep, baby girl,” Esme whispers with a kiss against her brow as her eyes droops. “We’ll be here when you wake up. Now and forever."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That... is a lot of words but there we are! End of this story (and nearly double the chapter but I couldn't just....... break it off in the middle of well, that). 
> 
> I feel kinda sad I couldn't focus on the rest of the Cullen's because I am painfully fond of Rosalie but I felt like this is how it needed to be written taking into consideration the angle of this fic and thus here we are.
> 
> Maybe a future story?
> 
> Thank you for sticking around and for your comments! It is very liberating to know I'm not the only one who like the occasional odd-pairing that strikes my fancy.
> 
> We'll see if this chapter lived up to your expectations.
> 
> Comment field is open business, I'm artsy-death on tumblr if you hang about there and this has been Don't Be Blue.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


	6. Notice

It became a serie.

Whoops.


End file.
